Science  and  Common  Sense 
IN  Working  With  Men 

By 

WALTER  DILL  SCOTT 

President  of  Northwestern  University;  President  of  The 
Scott  Company,  Philadelphia;  Formerly  Director  of  The 
Committee  on  Classification  of  Personnel  in  the  Army, 
and  President  of  the  American  Psychological  Associa- 
tion ;    Author  of  "Influencing   Men  in  Business,"  etc. 

And 
M.  H.  S.  HAYES 

Member  of  The  Scott  Company,  Philadelphia;  Forrnerly 
Associate  Psychologist,  Laboratory  of  Social  Hygiene; 
Joint  author  of  "Delinquent  Women  in  New  York  State" 


NEW  YORK 

THE  RONALD  PRESS  COMPANY 
1921 


Copyright,  192 1,  by 
The  Ronald  Press  Company 


All  Rights  Reserved 


PREFACE 

It  has  been  the  intention  of  the  authors  to  offer 
in  these  pages  a  plea  for  the  recognition  of  a  new 
point  of  view  in  deahng  with  men  in  industry. 

The  old  idea  of  thinking  of  men  as  so  many 
kilograms  of  muscular  energy,  to  be  bought,  ex- 
ploited, and  scrapped  when  occasion  demands,  is 
reaping  the  harvest  it  richly  deserves. 

Burst,  likewise,  is  the  bubble  of  paternalism 
which  sought  to  determine  for  labor  what  was 
good  for  it  and  feed  it  accordingly. 

Executives  are  now  coming  to  realize  that 
their  workers  are  not  a  bulk  mass  but  a  group  of 
individuals.  They  are  recognizing  that  these 
workers  differ  in  the  things  they  are  fitted  to  do 
and  capable  of  doing;  that  they  differ,  likewise, 
in  their  interests,  ambitions,  and  the  things  that 
seem  to  them  desirable;  and  that  as  men  of  differ- 
ing capacities  and  desires  they  require  individual 
adjustment  to  the  opportunities  offered  them  in 
the  field  of  industry. 

In  Chapters  I-VIII  we  have  attempted  to  de- 
scribe how  men  vary  in  capacities  of  one  sort  and 
another  and  how  science  may  be  pressed  into  serv- 
ice to  assist  in  discovering  these  variations.  In 
Chapters  IX  and  X  we  have  treated  of  some  of 


492r 


>  i  I 


IV 


PREFACE 


the  motives  which  have  been  operative  in  the  in- 
dustrial Hves  of  men.  In  Chapter  XI  we  have 
endeavored  to  point  out  how  it  is  possible  to  turn 
a  job  into  an  opportunity,  provided  due  recogni- 
tion has  been  given  to  the  first  two  factors.  And 
in  the  final  chapter  we  have  tried  to  show  that 
in  the  constant  flux  of  changing  conditions  and 
developing  personalities  today's  inspirations  are 
tomorrow's  platitudes,  and  the  process  of  adjust- 
ment of  men  to  jobs  is  not  fixed  and  static  but 
subject  to  constant  change. 


Walter  Dill   Scott 
M.  H.  S.  Hayes 


New  York  City 

September  15,  1921 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  Page 

I     Introduction       3 

Modern  Personnel  Work 
Knowing  the  Employees 
Employer  and  Employee 
Disadvantage  of  Personal  Contact 
Qualities  of  Personnel  Executive 
Former  Method  of  Selecting  Men 
The  Modern  Plans 

II     Measuring  Physical  Capacities     ...       15 

Physical  Examinations — Advantages 

Objections 

Special  Disabilities 

The  Physically  Handicapped 

Placing  Disabled   Workers 

Special  Physical  Abilities 

III     Mental  Tests 24 

Mental  Fitness 
Psychology  Misunderstood 
Correct  Attitude 
Kinds  of  Mental  Tests 
The  Miinsterberg  Test 
Mental  Alertness  Tests 
Binet-Simon  Test 
Modifications 
Abnormal  Cases 
Mental  Tests  in  Schools 
Above  and  Below  Par 
Grading  School  Children 
Mental  Tests  in  the  Army 
Testing  by  Groups 


vi  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

IV    Mental  Tests  in  Industry 47 

Special  Alertness  Tests  for  Industry 

Objections 

Advantages 

Classification  and  Adjustment 

Selection  and  Rejection 

Occupational  Groups 

Failure  to  Meet  the  Standard 

Incapacity 

Establishing  an  Average  Grade 

V     Various  Uses  and  Results  of  Mental 

Tests 61 

Mental  Alertness — Group  Differences 
Applicants  and  Employees 
Tests  of  Men  and  Women 
Reasons  for  Different  Results 
"Learning  on  the  Job" 
Classification  by  Education 
Mental  Tests  as  a  Basis  of  Classification 
Mental  Alertness  and  Stability 
Stability  in  Various  Departments 
Necessity  for  Two  Sets  of  Facts 
Benefits  of  Mental  Alertness  Tests 
Not  Universally  Applicable 

VI     Testing  Technical  Ability       ....      81 

i 
Technical  Ability  | 

Standardized  Trade  Tests  •  I 

The  Three  Requirements  of  the  Trade  Tests  ' 

Results  of  Trade  Test 


VII     Rating  Character  Qualities      ....      89 

Difficulty  of  Judging  Personality 
Selecting  a  Department  Head 
Different  Opinions  of  Executive  Qualities 
Method  of  Rating  Executive  Qualities 
Advantages  of  Rating  Scale 


CONTENTS  vii                        | 

Chapter  Page                      | 

VIII     Judging  a  Man  by  His  History  ....     102  1 

General  Factors  j 

Previous  Experience  | 

Education  ', 

Personal  History  I 

General  Conclusions  1 

I 

IX    Ascertaining  Desires no  ] 

Motives  for  Work       _  \ 

Necessity  for  Occupation  , 

The  Economic  Motive  , 

The  Creative  Instinct  ' 

How  the  Creative  Instinct  Works  ; 

Thwarted  Instincts  | 

X     Other  Desires  and  Instincts     ....     121  ] 

The  Desire  for  Authority  ; 

The  Competitive  Appeal  j 

The  Social  Instinct  1 

Prestige  of  Certain  Kinds  of  W^ork  | 

Loyalty,  Pride,  Justice,  Sympathy,  etc.  i 
Justice  versus  Benefaction 

Importance  of  Right  Incentive  ^ 

The  Industrial  Army  ] 

XI     Creating  Opportunities 134 

Studying  the  Job 
Fitting  the  Job  to  the  Worker 
The  Worker's  Viewpoint 
Jobs  Lacking  Opportunity 

XII     Adjustment  a  Continuous  Process  .     .     140                      .| 

Classifying  Men  in  the  War  .       ; 

The  Labor  Inventory  i 

The  Round  Peg  in  the  Round  Hole 

Rounding  the  Hole  or  Squaring  the  Peg 

Holding  the  Worker  Down 

Helping  the  Worker 

Changing  the  Old  Order  ' 

Every  Man  an  Industrial  Problem 


CHARTS 


Figure  Page 

1.  Chart  Showing  Relation  Between  Known  AbiHty 

of  Men  in  a  Factory  School  and  Mental  Alert- 
ness Test  Score 71 

2.  Chart  Showing   Desire   for   Change  of  Job  and 

Status  at  Leaving  Public  School       74 

3.  Graphic  Rating  Scale  for  Gauging  Foremen  and 

Other  Executives 96,  97 


IX 


SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 
IN  WORKING  WITH  MEN 


CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTION 

Modern  Personnel  Work 

There  may  be  those  who  will  feel  a  certain 
contradiction  in  the  title  of  this  book.  The  word 
''science"  is  for  some  surrounded  by  an  aura  of 
academic  pedantry  that  awakens  an  immediate 
antagonism  in  the  so-called  practical  man.  For 
his  benefit,  then,  we  have  added  the  words  "com- 
mon sense,"  since  this  is  his  slogan,  his  war-cry, 
and  the  standby  of  his  mental  mechanisms.  When 
now  we  turn  to  Father  Noah  for  justification,  we 
find  him  defining  science  as  ''knowledge,  compre- 
hension, and  understanding  of  the  truths  or  facts 
of  any  subject"  and  common  sense  as  "sound, 
practical  judgment."  If,  then,  we  can  combine 
the  two  and  strive  for  a  knowledge  of  the  truths 
or  facts  of  personnel  administration  and  on  the 
basis  of  these  render  a  sound,  practical  judgment, 
we  will  consider  the  job  well  done. 

Huxley  has  said  that  the  benefits  of  science 
are  derived  more  from  the  ijiethods  than  the 
piroducts  thereof,  and  this  statement  applies  with 
considerable  force  to  personnel  work.  The  data 
with  which  we  are  dealing  here  are  not  novel. 

3 


4  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

The  problem  of  the  relations  between  employers 
and  workers  has  existed  as  long  as  industry  has 
existed.  It  existed  when  the  industrial  concern 
consisted  of  a  boss  and  five  workmen  and  as  such 
it  was  recognized  and  dealt  with,  but  the  way  of 
dealing  with  it  was  the  rule-of -thumb  method 
which  the  size  of  the  organization  and  the  close 
relationship  of  employer  and  employee  made 
possible.  The  problems  which  confront  present- 
day  industry  are  essentially  the  same  problems, 
but  so  infinitely  magnified  and  complicated  that 
the  old  methods  of  dealing  with  them  are  no 
longer  possible.  It  is  therefore  necessary  to  have 
recourse  to  some  other  means  in  order  adequately 
"to  know,  comprehend,  and  understand  the  truths 
or  facts  of  the  situation"  that  a  ''wise  and  prac- 
tical judgment"  may  be  made. 

Knowing  the  Employees 

The  idea  of  modern  personnel  administration 
can  be  summed  up  in  four  words :  Know  your 
men  better.  When  this  suggestion  was  made 
to  the  president  of  a  large  automobile  factory  he 
replied  with  considerable  heat,  "Know  my  men 
better  ?  I  can  go  out  into  the  plant  and  call  every 
man  there  by  his  first  name."  Perhaps  he  could, 
but  he  had  nevertheless  failed  to  grasp  the  idea. 
Knowing  a  man  by  his  first  name  and  knowing 


INTRODUCTION  5 

his  history,  his  education,  his  special  training, 
his  particular  machine  or  tool  aptitude,  his  ability 
to  supervise  and  train  others,  the  ease  with  which 
he  learns  this  kind  of  work  as  against  that,  his 
interests  and  motives — these  are  two  entirely  dif- 
ferent things.  They  are  different  because  one  is 
superficial  and  the  other  is  fundamental.  Knowing 
the  name  of  every  man  in  your  plant  is  a  remark- 
able feat  of  memory.  It  is  a  valuable  social  asset. 
But  it  is  not  knowing  a  man — it  is  knowing  his 
name. 

Employer  and  Employee 

Those  of  us  who  are  interested  in  this  sub- 
ject are  fond  of  harking  back  to  the  time  when 
the  little  factory  was  the  productive  unit.  In  this 
little  factory  of  fifty  years  ago,  which  consisted 
of  anywhere  from  five  to  thirty  men,  the  owner 
was  also  the  resident  manager  and  often  worked 
with,  as  well  as  directed  the  men  under  him.  For 
this  reason,  then,  he  knew  his  men  personally, 
intimately,  by  daily  contact;  he  had  known  many 
of  them  from  boyhood,  had  even  perhaps  had 
his  eye  on  them  as  likely  youngsters  while  they 
were  still  in  school.  He  knew  their  practical 
qualifications,  their  strength  and  weakness,  their 
better  fitness  for  this  work  as  against  that ;  some- 
thing, as  well,  of  what  they  wanted  and  hoped  to 


6  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

do.  Because  he  knew  them  thus,  at  first  hand  and 
not  indirectly  through  foremen  and  superinten- 
dent, he  could  place  each  man  where  he  best  be- 
longed and  direct  and  develop  him  into  a  more 
and  more  valuable  worker. 

Let  us  jump  fifty  years.  The  small  factory 
has  given  place  to  the  large  factory.  The  com- 
pany of  ten  employees  is  now  a  company  of  from 
two  hundred  to  twenty  thousand.  The  old  per- 
sonal contact  has  dissolved — although  often  the 
desire  to  retain  it,  on  the  part  of  both  manage- 
ment and  employee,  remains.  Ordinarily  the  em- 
ployer knows  little  more  about  his  men  than  what 
he  learns  from  references  regarding  their  previous 
experience  and  the  ability  displayed  in  their  pres- 
ent work. 

Disadvantage  of  Personal  Contact 

Over  and  above  having  tired  our  readers  with 
reference  to  our  little  old  factory  of  1870,  we  have 
sometimes  been  accused  of  idealizing  it,  of  hold- 
ing it  out  as  the  Golden  Age  of  industry  when 
capital  and  labor  sat  at  meat  together — labor,  of 
course,  always  below  the  salt — and  adjusted  their 
problems  in  peace  and  harmony.  We  have  been 
asked:  Is  the  restoration  of  the  personal  touch 
all  that  labor  is  asking  for  today  ?  Isn't  it  rather 
a  more  intangible  thing  that  the  worker  is  seek- 


INTRODUCTION  7 

ing,  a  sort  of  vague  groping  toward  the  establish- 
ment of  principles  of  justice  and  fair  dealing? 

Was  it  true,  certain  questioners  have  queried, 
that  in  that  Age  of  Pericles  the  worker  always 
benefited  from  the  close  personal  contact  between 
himself  and  his  boss?  (If  a  low  form  of  wit  may 
be  permitted,  the  peon  system  exhibits  ''the  per- 
sonal touch"  par  excellence,  and  yet  one  would 
hesitate  to  recommend  it  as  good  personnel  prac- 
tice.) Didn't  it  sometimes  happen  that  the  em- 
ployer made  unsportsmanlike  use  of  the  informa- 
tion that  his  daily  contact  with  the  worker  en- 
abled him  to  obtain?  Didn't  he  know,  for  exam- 
ple, that  Bill  Smith  had  to  hold  his  job  because  he 
had  a  family  and  was  buying  a  house  ''on  time," 
so,  when  it  w^as  a  question  of  somebody's  doing 
an  especially  disagreeable  job,  didn't  he  wish  it 
on  Bill  rather  than  on  Pat  O'Toole  whom  he 
knew  to  be  foot-loose  and  fancy  free?  We  are 
willing  to  acknowledge  that  it  sometimes  did  hap- 
pen this  w'ay.  There  were  many  employers  for 
whom  no  method  was  too  small,  no  means  too 
low  to  assist  them  in  securing  the  last  atom  of 
profit  which  could  be  extracted  from  a  worker. 
Moreover,  we  are  not  so  optimistic  as  to  believe 
that  human  nature  has  entirely  altered  in  a  half 
century.  The  efforts  of  modern  personnel  admin- 
istration to  restore  the  personal  touch  between  the 


8  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

employer  and  his  workers  will  conceivably  even 
do  harm  if  such  an  employer  be  assumed.  Edu- 
cation is  effective  only  where  it  has  something 
to  build  on,  and  the  time  spent  in  teaching  an 
entirely  selfish  employer  the  principles  of  modern 
personnel  practice  stands  as  so  many  wasted  hours 
in  one's  "Book  of  Days." 

We  do  not  mean  to  imply  thereby  that  for  an 
employer  adequately  to  grasp  the  principles  of 
personnel  administration  it  is  necessary  that  he 
steep  his  soul  in  the  sort  of  sentimental  twaddle 
that  attends  some  of  the  so-called  social  or  wel- 
fare work.  This  kind  of  pabulum  oftentimes 
serves  simply  to  gratify  that  curiosity  which  per- 
vades the  souls  of  **old  women  of  both  sexes." 
There  is  a  line  of  demarkation,  clearly  visible  to 
the  right  sort  of  individual — and  no  other  should 
be  permitted  to  handle  men — between  finding  out 
what  you  need  to  know  about  a  man  for  his  bene- 
fit and  yours  and  prying  into  personal  affairs 
which  are  his  own  concern. 

Qualities  of  Personnel  Executive 

This  line  varies  with  every  man  you  deal  with, 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  we  cannot  empha- 
size too  strongly  here  the  prime  necessity  of 
choosing  your  personnel  executive  with  care.  He 
should  be  at  one  and  the  same  time  a  frank  and 


INTRODUCTION  9 

outspoken  diplomat,  a  statesman  for  whom  no 
problem  is  too  trivial,  a  good  fellow  and  a  mixer 
without  losing  thereby  one  iota  of  his  dignity,  an 
unimpeachable  judge  with  a  broad  charity  for 
human  frailties,  a  scholar  with  a  full  recognition 
of  the  attainments  of  his  humblest  trucker — in 
short,  a  two-fisted  man  with  the  instincts  of  a 
gentleman.  With  such  a  man  in  the  saddle,  a 
recognition  of  the  principles  of  justice  and  fair 
dealing  are  fairly  w^ell  assured,  and  the  tools  of 
personnel  administration  serve  simply  to  provide 
him  with  ''the  truths  or  facts  about  the  subject," 
on  the  basis  of  which  he  can  formulate  the  labor 
policies  of  his  organization  in  accordance  with 
such  principles.  If  this  sounds  like  a  plea  for  the 
establishment  of  a  beneficent  despotism  rather 
than  the  laying  down  of  inflexible  laws,  we  reply 
that  in  the  last  analysis  all  matters  of  contro- 
versy are  dependent  on  human  judgment.  In 
their  most  extreme  instance,  the  decisions  of  the 
justices  of  our  Supreme  Court  are  dependent 
upon  their  interpretation  of  the  written,  estab- 
lished, unvarying  laws. 

So,  whether  you  are  operating  under  union 
agreement,  with  organization  committees,  or  by 
the  open-shop  system,  much  of  the  success  of 
your  negotiations  depends  upon  the  personality 
of  the  man  or  men  to  whom  you  have  delegated 


10  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

the  function  of  dealing  with  your  workers.  The 
assigning  of  the  job  of  selecting,  hiring,  placing, 
training,  transferring,  promoting,  and  firing  men, 
to  any  Tom,  Dick,  or  Harry  that  wasn't  needed 
anywhere  else  in  your  organization  has  been  re- 
sponsible for  much  of  the  stupidity  as  well  as 
the  crying  injustice  that  has  marked  the  relations 
of  labor  and  capital  in  the  past.  If,  then,  we  say 
"Know  your  men  better,"  and  suggest  that  you 
let  that  man  or  group  of  men  to  whom  the  in- 
formation is  brought  be  someone  who  is  inter- 
ested more  in  men  than  in  things,  we  have  given 
you  at  the  start-off  our  idea  of  the  function  of 
personnel  administration. 

Let  us  also  at  the  outset  make  it  clear  that 
in  this  book  we  are  dealing  with  the  function 
rather  than  the  field  of  personnel.  We  have  en- 
deavored to  present  some  ideas  on  the  relationship 
between  men  and  management  and  to  discuss  the 
modern  methods  of  furthering  this  relationship. 
We  have  dealt  with  the  tools  of  personnel  admin- 
istration only  in  so  far  as  they  illustrate  the 
methods  of  restoring  the  personal  relation  be- 
tween the  worker  and  his  boss.  Specific  treat- 
ment of  such  matters  as  safety,  medical  research, 
occupational  hazards,  fatigue,  welfare,  industrial 
education,  working  conditions,  labor  turnover, 
etc..  as  well  as  the  whole  fundamental  issue  of 


INTRODUCTION  n 

collective  bargaining  or  other  group  relationships 
has  been  purposely  reserved  for  discussion  else- 
where. 


Former  Method  of  Selecting  Men 

In  the  "good  old  days,"  when  the  queue  of 
waiting  applicants  stretched  half  way  across  the 
factory  yard,  the  method  of  selection  and  place- 
ment was  a  hail  from  the  door,  **Hey,  you  with 
the  black  cap,  get  on  the  job  in  building  2 !"  If 
one  could  find  no  more  profitable  employment 
than  delving  into  the  mental  processes  of  the  man 
who  spoke — be  he  foreman,  employment  clerk, 
or  what  not — one  would  most  likely  find  that  the 
man  with  the  black  cap  was  selected  from  the 
ranks  of  his  fellows  because  he  was  big,  or  be- 
cause he  was  young,  or  because  he  looked  strong, 
or,  maybe,  because  he  didn't  look  lazy.  The 
criterion  of  bulk  was,  perhaps,  the  most  common 
guide  for  selection.  Strength,  youth,  and  activ- 
ity !  What  more  could  one  ask  of  a  worker  ?  The 
method  of  assignment,  too,  was  simple.  There 
were  jobs  to  be  filled  in  building  2.  They  want 
work,  we  have  jobs.  Put  them  together  and  the 
problem  is  solved. 

Maybe  it  happens  that  the  man  can't  do  the 
work.  Maybe,  for  all  his  beef,  he  is  slow  and 
stupid.     Maybe  he  doesn't  like  the  job,  or  the 


12  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

working  conditions,  or  his  fellow-workmen,  or 
the  foreman.  Let  him  go,  then.  There  are  plenty 
more  where  he  came  from.  In  the  ''good  old 
days"  the  ranks  of  the  unemployed  were  self- 
replenishing.  Jobs  were  fewer,  workers  were  ne- 
gotiating as  individual  units,  immigration  was  on 
the  boom,  and  sources  of  labor  supply  were  the 
least  of  the  employer's  problems.  If  a  man  looked 
good,  you  hired  him  for  the  job  that  was  open, 
and  if  he  failed  to  succeed,  or  if  he  didn't  like  the 
work,  or  when  that  particular  job  was  finished, 
you  fired  him.  ''Thus  was  the  thing  accom- 
plished." 

Three  factors — and  many  more — have  contrib- 
uted to  the  decline  of  the  "good  old  days."  One 
was  an  appeal  close  to  the  heart  of  the  "hard- 
boiled  boss" — money.  Figures  were  beginning 
to  be  kept  on  the  expense  of  maintaining  this 
stream  of  short-time  men — the  cost  involved  in 
wasted  material,  damaged  machinery,  and  de- 
creased production.  The  factory  manager  was 
beginning  to  turn  a  speculative  eye  on  the  item  of 
labor  turnover. 

Another  influence  was  making  itself  manifest 
from  the  worker  himself.  He  was  coming  to 
realize  that  as  a  single  unit  he  could  make  no 
stand  against  an  unscrupulous  employer,  could 
offer  no  opposition  to  unfair  conditions,  but  that, 


INTRODUCTION  13 

taken  as  an  aggregate,  labor  presented  a  force 
that  must  be  reckoned  with.  The  worker  was 
beginning  to  demand  consideration  through  the 
principle  of  collective  bargaining. 

The  third  factor  is,  however,  the  most  hope- 
ful from  a  social  point  of  view.  It  is  the  gradual 
recognition  of  the  idea  that  the  relation  between 
capital  and  labor  involves  a  mutual  obligation, 
that  even  as  it  is  no  more  of  a  concession  for  Mr. 
A  to  sell  a  house  to  Mr.  B  than  it  is  for  Mr.  B 
to  buy  a  house  from  Mr.  A,  so  the  qualified 
worker  is  no  more  beholden  to  the  employer  for 
giving  him  a  job  than  the  employer  is  in  his  debt 
for  taking  it.  The  «nployer  must  resign  the  role 
of  "Lady  Bountiful,"  and  the  worker  must  cease 
to  be  an  object  of  charity  and  take  his  place  as  a 
citizen,  capable  of  assuming  the  responsibility  of 
making  and  keeping  a  contract. 

The  Modern  Plans 

It  must  not  be  assumed  that  these  factors  have 
already  completely  functioned,  that  their  work  is 
accomplished  and  that  the  ''good  old  days"  are 
fast  sinking  into  the  mists  of  oblivion.  The  hard- 
boiled  employer,  like  the  poor,  we  have  always 
with  us.  Labor  legislation,  popular  sentiment, 
and  union  activities  are  trimming  his  claws,  but 
in  his  heart  and  in  his  thinking  his  word  is  still 


14  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

an  ipse  dixit,  and  he  submits  with  a  poor  grace 
to  these  new-fangled  notions  and  prophesies  a 
bad  end  for  the  new  industrial  generation. 

Yet  the  best  of  our  progressive  employers  are 
today  coming  to  realize  that  in  the  careful  study 
of  men  and  jobs  there  is  commercial  benefit 
to  be  derived  in  the  way  of  increased  produc- 
tion, decreased  turnover,  and  heightened  morale. 
Moreover,  the  progressive  employer  is  coming  to 
realize  that  in  dealing  with  men  there  is  involved, 
as  well,  a  certain  ethical  obligation  which  requires 
that  every  man  who  contracts  to  work  for  him 
shall  be  afforded  an  opportunity  to  make  the  most 
of  himself,  given  a  chance  to  go  as  far  as  his 
capacities  enable  him,  his  interests  impel  him, 
and  the  opportunities  of  the  organization  permit. 
This  means  studying  the  capacities  and  desires  of 
the  man  and  the  opportunities  of  the  organiza- 
tion in  order  to  co-ordinate  the  three  into  a  har- 
monious whole,  for  the  mutual  benefit  of  the  man 
and  the  organization. 


CHAPTER  II 

MEASURING  PHYSICAL  CAPACITIES 

Physical  Examinations — Advantages 
-^  Justification  for  the  physical  examination  of 
workers  has  been  a  moot  point  for  a  long  time, 
but  the  desirability  of  such  examination  does  not 
admit  of  question  among  progressive  employers 
of  labor.  From  a  purely  selfish  point  of  view, 
its  advantage  to  the  employer  lies  in  providing 
against  putting  men  on  jobs  at  which,  because  of 
physical  disability,  they  will  be  unable  to  produce 
the  standard  amount.  It  is,  moreover,  desirable 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  worker  himself, 
both  as  an  individual  and  as  a  member  of  a  social 
group.  It  removes  the  possibility  of  assigning 
the  physically  handicapped  man  to  the  kind  of 
job  in  the  performance  of  which  he  might  do  him- 
self further  injury. 

Instances  of  such  possibilities  come  readily  to 
mind.  Such  are  the  putting  of  workers  with 
weak  eyes  on  jobs  which  involve  continuous  eye- 
strain; the  assigning  of  a  man  having  a  hernia 
to  a  job  requiring  heavy  trucking  or  lifting;  the 
employment  of  cases  of  incipient  tuberculosis  in 
occupations   where    working   conditions    involve 

15 


l6  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

possible  breathing  of  dust  or  lint;  or  the  assign- 
ing of  persons  afflicted  with  nephritis  to  jobs 
where  they  would  be  exposed  to  cold,  dampness, 
or  fluctuation  of  temperature. 

Moreover,  such  an  examination  often  serves 
as  a  warning  for  the  worker  of  impending  trouble. 
By  calling  his  attention  to  a  slight  ailment  which 
might  otherwise  pass  unnoticed,  it  enables  him  to 
take  measures  to  prevent  serious  consequences. 
For  the  consideration  of  the  working  group  as  a 
whole,  the  desirability  of  physical  examination  is 
seen  in  the  safeguarding  of  the  group  from  cases 
of  communicable  diseases,  such  as  trachoma, 
syphilis,  or  tuberculosis.  It  helps  also  to  protect 
against  injury  in  certain  gang  operations  where 
the  collapse  of  an  individual  engaged  in  the  opera- 
tion of  dangerous  machinery  would  have  disas- 
trous consequences  for  all. 

Objections 

But,  however  desirable  such  a  proceeding  is 
when  properly  and  legitimately  applied,  the  prac- 
tice of  making  physical  examinations  has  infinite 
possibilities  of  misuse  in  the  hands  of  unscrupu- 
lous employers.  Labor  unions  have  almost  uni- 
versally gone  on  record  as  opposing  it.  They 
claim  that  it  has  been  used  as  a  form  of  legiti- 
matized black  list,  whereby  workers  distasteful 


MEASURING  PHYSICAL  CAPACITIES         17 

to  the  management  can  be  prevented  from  obtain- 
^ing  employment  on  the  basis  of  some  sHght  or 
even  invented  ailment. 

There  is  still  another  factor  which  militates 
against  the  universal  adoption  of  such  a  practice, 
and  this  lies  in  a  certain  sentiment  which  exists, 
especially  among  women,  that  makes  this  proce- 
dure extremely  distasteful.  How  much  this  sen- 
timent involves  the  habit  of  modesty  and  how 
much  it  is  concerned  with  the  emotion  of  fear — 
the  dread  of  learning  that  you  are  not  well,  that 
you  may  be  subject  to  the  pain  of  an  operation 
or  the  isolation  of  a  hospital  commitment — it  is 
impossible  to  say.  But  anyone  who  has  had  first- 
hand dealings  with  ignorant  people,  especially 
with  recent  immigrants  for  whom  our  medical 
practices  have  the  additional  horror  of  complete 
unfamiliarity,  knows  how  very  difficult  it  is  to 
get  them  to  submit  to  any  sort  of  modern  medical 
or  surgical  attention.  Certain  it  is  that  factory 
nurses  will  tell  you  many  stories  of  the  struggles 
they  encountered,  in  the  early  days  of  industrial 
medicine,  in  the  effort  to  persuade  the  workers 
to  make  use  of  the  facilities  offered  them. 

When  you  combine  with  this  the  taboo  which 
has  existed  for  generations  regarding  the  men- 
tion of  certain  diseases,  such  as  tuberculosis, 
epilepsy,  syphilis,  and  cancer,  it  is  easy  to  see 


l8  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

that  the  road  toward  the  establishment  of  a  uni- 
versal practice  of  physical  examination  is  not  a 
smooth  one. 

From  a  purely  social  point  of  view,  also,  there 
is  room  for  argument  against  a  too  narrow  appli- 
cation of  this  procedure.  One  cannot,  with  logic, 
scorn  the  crippled  beggar  on  the  street  and  still 
refuse  him  an  opportunity  to  earn  his  livelihood 
in  industry.  Surveys  of  the  two  cities  of  New 
York  and  Cleveland  show  the  number  of  cripples 
to  follow  the  ratios  of  6.9  and  6.2  per  thousand. 
If  American  business  and  manufacture  are  not 
to  countenance  the  survival  of  pauperism,  the 
obligation  rests  squarely  upon  them  to  make  some 
place  for  these  men  in  industry.  Indeed,  if  this 
obligation  did  not  exist  a  decade  ago,  at  least  to- 
day the  patriotic  obligation  of  providing  occupa- 
tions for  men  disabled  in  the  war  points  the  way 
in  no  uncertain  manner. 

Special  Disabilities 

Under  the  auspices  of  the  Red  Cross  and  simi- 
lar organizations,  studies  have  been  made  of  the 
opportunities  for  crippled  and  otherwise  disabled 
men  in  particular  industries. 

One  method  of  making  these  studies  has  been 
to  send  investigators  to  the  company  in  question, 
and  with  its  co-operation  make  a  careful  study  of 


MEASURING  PHYSICAL  CAPACITIES 


19 


all  jobs,  in  order  to  find  out  what  physical  quali- 
fications it  is  essential  for  the  worker  to  possess 
in  order  adequately  to  perform  the  necessary 
operations.  In  one  such  study  that  was  carried 
out  by  the  Red  Cross  in  one  ot  the  large  packing 
houses  in  Chicago,  the  jobs  were  studied  from  the 
standpoint  of  eleven  general  types  of  disability, 
as  follows : 


L. 

Legs:  0,  I,  2 

S. 

Skin 

A. 

Arms :  0,  i,  2 

N.  Normal 

I.  Irritated 

H. 

Hands:  0,  i,  2 

D.  Diseased 

F. 

Fingers:  o-io 

R. 

Rupture 

N. 

Nerves 

N.  Normal 

N.  Normal 

H.  Hernia 

R.  Reliable 

K. 

Kidneys  and  other 

S.  Shell  Shock 

trunk  organs 
N.  Normal 

V. 

Vision 

F.  Fair 

N.  Normal 

W.  Weak 

P.  Poor 

U.  Unfit 

B.  Blind 

P. 

Pulmonary 

E. 

Ears 

N.  Normal 

N.  Normal 

P.  Poor 

P.  Poor 

A.  Arrested  tuber- 

D. Deaf 

culosis 

The  Physically  Handicapped 

If,  for  example,  we  take  the  job  of  driving 
in  cattle  to  the  killing  floor,  we  get  the  following 


20 


SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 


chart,  which  is  understandable  by  reference  to 
the  preceding  table. 


L  A 

H  F 

N 

V 

E   S  R 

K  P 

2     2 

2     8 

R 

N 

N  D  H  N  N 

Driving 

in 

Cattle 

From  this  chart  we  see  that  in  order  to  per- 
form the  operations  required  on  this  job,  a  man 
must  have  both  legs,  both  arms,  and  both  hands. 
He  may,  however,  be  lacking  two  fingers  and  still 
be  able  to  manipulate  successfully.  Again,  this 
operation  is  not  one  that  demands  calm  nervous 
adjustment  or  absolute  poise,  so  there  is  no  reason 
for  his  nervous  system  being  absolutely  normal, 
but  he  must  not  be  a  victim  of  that  disturbed  con- 
dition known  as  shell  shock.  The  job  demands 
normal  functioning  both  of  vision  and  of  hearing. 
In  the  matter  of  skin  condition,  since  the  work  is 
performed  in  relative  isolation  and  since  the  oper- 
ation is  in  no  way  concerned  with  handling  the 
finished  food  product,  there  is  no  reason  why  a 
diseased  skin  condition  should  disqualify  the 
worker.  Likewise  it  is  possible  to  employ  here  a 
man  who  is  suffering  from  hernia,  since  the  job 
does   not    involve   any   operation   which    brings 


MEASURING  PHYSICAL  CAPACITIES         21 

severe  strain  on  the  trunk  muscles.  Because  the 
work  is  largely  performed  out  of  doors  and  the 
worker  is  therefore  exposed  to  all  sorts  of 
weather,  it  is  not  expedient  to  employ  a  man 
whose  lungs  and  kidneys  are  not  in  good  condi- 
tion. We  see,  then,  that  this  job  of  driving  in 
cattle  is  one  which  can  be  satisfactorily  performed 
by  a  man  who  is  handicapped  by  a  hernia,  by  a 
diseased  skin  condition,  by  the  loss  of  two  fingers, 
or  by  a  less  than  normal  nervous  condition. 

In  a  like  manner  we  find  that  the  job  of  roll- 
ing and  folding  hides  can  be  handled  by  a  man 
who  is  deaf  and  whose  vision  is  poor,  that  a 
scaler  may  successfully  perform  his  duties  with 
one  arm  missing,  and  that  the  job  of  washing  fat 
for  the  oleo  department  can  be  done  by  a  man 
who  has  lost  both  legs.  In  this  same  study  an 
effort  was  made  to  ascertain  the  length  of  time 
required  to  learn  the  job,  the  piece-rate,  and  a 
rough  approximation  of  the  amount  of  schooling 
necessary. 

Placing  Disabled  Workers 

With  these  facts  in  mind,  then,  we  can  pro- 
vide for  the  handicapped  worker  a  safe  and  profit- 
able berth  wherein  he  can  maintain  himself  as  a 
useful  and  self-respecting  individual.  From  a 
purely  selfish  point  of  view,  the  employer  may 


22  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

bear  in  mind,  also,  that  these  handicapped  work- 
ers, once  satisfactorily  adjusted,  form  a  highly 
stable  and  dependable  group;  the  very  difficulty 
of  securing  such  adjustment  pathetically  serves 
to  bring  this  about.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  cer- 
tain physical  disabilities  are  a  bar  to  certain  jobs, 
but  that  these  same  disabilities  in  no  way  dis- 
qualify a  man  for  certain  other  jobs. 

When,  in  191 8,  the  reconstruction  service 
was  first  getting  under  way,  one  of  its  officials 
circulated  a  general  appeal  to  handicapped  per- 
sons asking  that  they  send  in  accounts  of  their 
types  of  disablement  and  what  means  they  had 
employed  to  overcome  their  economic  handicaps. 
The  replies  convinced  him  that  there  was  no 
physical  handicap  which  an  ambitious  man  could 
not  overcome  provid'ed  he  was  given  a  chance. 
It  is  perhaps,  then,  not  expecting  too  much  al- 
truism on  the  part  of  the  employer  to  ask  him  to 
meet  the  disabled  worker  half  way  and  to  search 
his  organization  for  niches,  or  even  to  so  modify 
conditions  as  to  make  niches,  wherein  the  halt, 
the  lame,  and  the  blind  may  find  a  place. 

Special  Physical  Abilities 

Besides  providing  a  means  of  adjustment  for 
men  handicapped  by  physical  disabilities,  the  pro- 
cedure of  making  physical  examination  of  all  ap- 


MEASURING  PHYSICAL  CAPACITIES        23 

plicants  affords  a  means  of  discovering  those  men 
possessing  the  special  physical  abilities  which  are 
demanded  by  certain  particular  jobs;  such  work, 
for  example,  as  demands  exceptional  strength, 
unusual  rapidity  or  special  nicety  of  motor  co- 
ordination, the  ability  to  resist  extremes  of  tem- 
perature, or  a  hypersensitivity  of  some  one  of 
the  special  senses.  These  individuals,  when  dis- 
covered, are  of  immense  value  to  the  organization 
and  are  themselves  enabled  to  capitalize  on  their 
\  exceptional  abilities. 


CHAPTER  III 

MENTAL  TESTS 

Mental  Fitness 
^  We  have  earlier  said  that  in  the  days  when 
the  labor  supply  exceeded  the  industrial  demand, 
the  most  common  criterion  of  selection  was  physi- 
cal size.  To  the  arduous  labor  of  making  this 
judgment  we  sometimes  find  the  employment  man 
of  a  decade  ago  telling  us  that  he  has  added  still 
another  chore  to  his  already  burdened  brain.  *T 
picked  him,"  he  says,  "because  he  was  a  bright- 
looking  fellow,"  By  what  God-given  faculty  our 
old-time  employers  claimed  ability  to  do  this  thing 
we  do  not  know.  That  occasionally  there  exists  a 
man  who  seems  to  have  an  almost  uncanny  success 
in  sizing  up  men  is  an  undeniable  fact.  That 
there  are  legions  who  jeel  that  they  have  this 
faculty  is  a  regrettable  circumstance.  Perhaps 
what  followed  came  about  as  a  result  of  the  ac- 
claim which  attended  these  talented  individuals. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  result  of  the  general  awaken- 
ing interest  of  business  men  in  the  application  of 
the  facts  and  methods  of  the  sciences  to  the  prac- 
tical problems  of  production. 
^      At  all  events,   beginning  some  eight  or  ten 

24 


MENTAL  TESTS  25 

years  ago,  there  spread  over  the  country  a  veri- 
table epidemic  of  "infalHble  systems"  of  judg- 
ing men,  wherein  the  appHcant  was  subjected  to 
a  most  severe  scrutiny  as  regards  his  facial  angle, 
anthropometric  index,  the  caliber  of  his  hair,  the 
bumps  on  his  head,  or  the  linings  of  his  cal- 
lous palms.  With  a  conscientious  thoroughness 
worthy  of  a  better  cause,  he  was — and  is — exam- 
ined and  tested  and  scrutinized  in  every  conceiv- 
able unimportant  detail.  Like  a  swarm  of  biblical 
locusts  these  systems  have  swept  over  our  coun- 
try, and,  to  a  more  limited  extent,  have  invaded 
populations  less  eagerly  gullible.  This  scourge 
has  consumed  with  scorn  the  old  accredited  judger 
of  men  who  operated  by  the  combined  method  of 
extensive  trial  and  error  and  his  'Svomanly  intui- 
tion." It  has  likewise  laid  waste  much  of  the 
fair  field  of  open-mindedness  which  was  the  legiti- 
mate testing  ground  for  the  reputable  science  of 
psychology. 

Psychology  Misunderstood 

What,  then,  is  this  reputable  science  of  psy- 
chology? It  has  been  said  that  psychology  is  the 
most  abused  word  in  the  English  language. 
Whenever  an  appeal  to  facts  is  impossible,  when- 
ever one  finds  oneself  unable  to  quote  chapter 
and  verse  to  substantiate  a  statement,  when  one 


26  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

is  confronted  with  that  vague,  intangible  impres- 
sion that  is  most  adequately  expressed  as  "a 
hunch,"  then  the  layman  plunges  the  mental 
thumb  into  his  cherished  mass  of  pseudoscientific 
terms  and  triumphantly  extracts  therefrom  ''psy- 
chology." He  will  talk  to  you  of  the  "psycho- 
logical moment,"  of  the  "psychology"  of  interior 
decorations,  or  the  "psychological  effect"  of  a 
situation.  He  will,  in  short,  apply  the  term  indis- 
criminately to  time,  space,  and  action.  And  the 
really  distressing  phase  of  the  situation  lies  in 
the  readiness  with  which  he  is  understood  by  the 
larger  part  of  his  audience.  But,  should  the 
speaker  go  about  among  his  hearers  and  say, 
frankly,  "I  am  asking  for  information!  What 
did  I  mean  when  I  said  that?"  he  would  find  that 
their  bright  nod  of  comprehension  was  but  the 
cordial  recognition  of  a  mutual  vagueness. 

No  small  number  of  the  vendors  of  so-called 
infallible  systems  style  themselves  "psycholo- 
gists." The  magic  word  has  so  firm  a  hold  on  the 
popular  fancy  that  the  mere  use  of  the  term  pro- 
vides, often  in  the  most  unexpected  quarters,  a 
ready  sale  for  their  wares.  In  fact,  it  is  often 
not  a  question  of  selling,  but  rather  of  avoiding 
an  insistent  buyer.  We  will  venture  to  say  that 
there  is  not  a  psychological  laboratory — ^be  it  ever 
so  staidly  reputed — connected  with  any  one  of 


MENTAL  TESTS  27 

our  universities  that  does  not  receive  each  year  a 
goodly  number  of  requests  to  analyze  character, 
estimate  efficiency,  or  explain  and  advise  upon 
mental  experiences  of  one  sort  or  another. 

Although  it  is  against  these  professional  fakers 
who  seek  to  capitalize  the  term  that  every  reput- 
able psychologist  chiefly  revolts,  the  credit  for  the 
deplorable  confusion  which  surrounds  the  word 
"psychology"  is  not  all  to  be  laid  at  their  door. 
Our  neighbor  who  happens  in  for  a  friendly  chat 
must  needs  employ  the  abused  term  to  explain 
why  his  children  break  windows  or  why  he  feels 
blue  after  dining  on  his  wife's  biscuits.  Half  of 
the  works  of  fiction  are  termed  ''psychological 
novels,"  and  every  edition  of  our  daily  press  adds 
its  quota — -"by  cryptic  reference  to  the  "psy- 
chology''* of  the  political  situation  or  the  "psychic 
importance"  of  some  event — to  the  confused 
vagueness  in  which  our  poor,  strangling  concept 
swims  wild-eyed  and  distracted  like  a  goldfish  in 
an  ever-congealing  bowl  of  jelly. 

Correct  Attitude 

Psychology  is  still  the  youngest  science  and 
like  the  youngest  in  all  families  stands  in  danger 
of  being  "spoiled.'*  She  may  be  spoiled  by  over- 
enthusiasm  or  she  may  be  spoiled  by  cold  derision. 
And  the  latter  is  often  a  reaction  against  the 


28  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

former.  Psychology  has  done  much  in  the  years 
of  her  existence.  Her  potentiahties  are  even 
greater  than  her  accompHshments.  Some  of  the 
products  of  her  laboratories  are  now  established 
facts  and  available  for  practical  use;  some  are 
still  in  the  testing  stage,  and  yet  others  are  mere 
hypotheses.  If  the  layman  will  allow  the  psy- 
chologists to  decide  which  of  their  wares  are  in 
salable  condition  and  which  are  as  yet  unfit  for 
the  market,  he  will  find  thereby  less  to  satisfy  his 
love  of  the  fantastic  but  more  that  will  be  of 
service  to  him  in  his  daily  life. 

Kinds  of  Mental  Tests 

During  the  last  decade  there  has  grown  up 
in  industry  an  increasing  demand  for  means  that 
would  assist  the  manager  to  select  men  better 
suited,  both  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  men 
themselves  and  of  the  management,  to  the  work 
they  have  to  do.  To  this  end  an  ever-increasing 
interest  has  come  to  be  manifested  in  one  such 
factor,  namely,  so-called  mental  tests.  We  will 
later  attempt  to  tell  something  of  the  historical 
development  of  the  science  of  mental  testing.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say  here  that  it  took  its  practical  incen- 
tive from  an  educational  source,  as  a  means  of 
classifying  and  adjusting  educational  misfits.  It 
will,  perhaps,  clarify  the  field  somewhat  if  we 


MENTAL  TESTS  29 

note  at  the  outset  that  there  are  several  sorts  of 
mental  tests,  intended  to  perform  different  func- 
tions and  limited  in  their  scope  to  those  functions^ 

There  are  many  people  today  who  believe  that 
a  mental  test  is  a  device  by  which  it  is  possible  to 
tell  people  at  what  job  they  would  succeed  best — 
a  sort  of  scientific  horoscope  that  would  infallibly 
predict  that  John  Smith  would  make  a  better  law- 
yer than  a  doctor  and  Henry  Jones  a  better  car- 
penter than  a  plumber.  This  kind  of  what  has 
been  technically  termed  a  ''differential  diagnostic 
test  for  occupations"  is  the  type  of  test  which  the 
vocational  guidance  people  are  endeavoring  to  set 
up.  It  will  undoubtedly  be  of  incalculable  value 
both  to  the  individual  and  to  industry,  but  it  is 
a  most  difficult  sort  of  test  to  work  out  and  least 
progress  of  a  reliable  kind  has  been  made  along 
this  line. 

A  kind  of  test  that  might  conceivably  be  con- 
fused with  this  differential  diagnostic  test  is 
known  as  a  ''trade  test."  ^  A  trade  test  is  a  method 
of  measuring  a  man's  present  ability  at  his  job. 
It  tells  you  how  good  a  carpenter  or  a  plumber 
a  man  now  is — or  if  he  isn't  one  at  all.  It  gives 
you  the  kind  of  information  that  a  man's  fore- 
man can  ordinarily  give  you  after  he  has  super- 
vised him  at  work  on  the  job  for  a  certain  number 
of  months,  or  weeks,  or  days,  depending  on  how 


30  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

intelligent  a  foreman  he  is  and  how  much  time 
he  has  to  devote  to  individual  men.  One  point 
should,  however,  be  kept  clear.  A  trade  test 
shows  you  how  good  a  craftsman  a  man  now  is 
in  his  line ;  it  throws  no  light  on  his  future  possi- 
bilities. It  shows  you  what  his  past  experience 
and  efforts  have  done  for  him,  but  not  what  poten- 
tialities his  mental  make-up  may  contain.  Such 
tests  are  described  in  a  later  section. 

The  Munsterberg  Test 

Another  type  of  test — and  this  was  one  of  the 
earliest  sort  of  tests  applied  to  industry — consists 
in  first  analyzing  the  job  to  discover  the  particu- 
lar mental  or  physical  qualifications  which  such 
work  demands  of  its  doer,  and  then  testing  the 
worker  for  these  particular  qualifications.  An 
example  of  such  a  test  is  reported  by  Thompson. 
The  occupation  was  concerned  with  the  inspect- 
ing of  bicycle  bearings,  and  the  process  was  to 
allow  the  balls  to  roll  between  the  fingers  on  the 
back  of  the  left  hand  and  to  extract  those  that 
were  defective  by  means  of  a  magnet  held  in  the 
right  hand. 

Thompson  analyzed  this  process  as  being 
primarily  dependent  on  speed  of  reaction  time, 
i.e.,  the  ability  to  lessen  the  interval  between  the 
time  of  perceiving  a  defective  bearing  and  the 


MENTAL  TESTS  31 

muscular  reaction  of  extracting  the  same  with  the 
magnet.  Instruments  for  measuring  reaction 
time  are  part  of  the  standard  equipment  of  any 
psychological  laboratory,  and  it  was  a  simple  mat- 
ter to  test  the  girls  employed  at  this  work.  As 
a  result  of  his  experiment,  it  was  found  that  by 
selecting  the  girls  whose  reaction  times  were 
shortest  it  was  eventually  possible  for  35  girls  to 
accomplish  the  work  previously  assigned  to  120, 
and  to  increase  the  accuracy  of  the  work  by  two- 
thirds.  This  sort  of  test  shades  over  of  course, 
into  the  physical  tests  of  visual  and  auditory  keen- 
ness, color-blindness,  etc.,  all  of  which  have  their 
proper  and  obvious  place  in  certain  lines  of 
industry. 

This  is  the  type  of  test  which  Miinsterberg, 
in  1910,  first  brought  forward.  His  method  was 
to  devise  tests  which  counterfeited  in  miniature 
the  operations  of  the  given  job,  and  then  try  out 
the  applicants  on  these  models.  He  devised 
tests  for  such  dissimiliar  jobs  as  motorman,  tele- 
phone operator,  and  ship  captain.  The  latest 
exponent  of  this  sort  of  testing  is  Henry  C.  Link,^ 
who  has  prepared  a  series  of  tests  especially 
appropriate  to  the  jobs  of  a  small-parts  metal- 
trade  industry. 


I  Henry  C.  Link,  Employment  Psychology,  New  York.  The  Macmil- 
Ian  Co.,  I9I9' 


32 


SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 


Mental  Alertness  Tests 

The  fourth  type  of  mental  test  is  the  one,  how- 
ever, on  which  the  most  extensive  work  has  been 
done.  The  tests  belonging  to  this  type  are  the 
so-called  tests  of  general  intelligence,  or,  as  we 
prefer  to  call  them,  tests  of  mental  alertness.  The 
principle  on  which  these  tests  are  based  is  that  put 
forward  by  the  British  psychologist.  Spearman. 
He  explains  the  fact  that  people  who  are  good 
in  one  type  of  intellectual  response  are  generally 
— not  universally,  but  generally — good  also  in 
another,  by  saying  that  they  are  drawing  on  a 
common  fund  of  general  intelligence.  If,  there- 
fore, we  can  measure  a  man's  mental  alertness 
and  find  that  he  ranks  high,  we  can  feel  reasonably 
safe  in  steering  him  into  a  line  of  work  which  calls 
for  a  high  degree  of  mental  ability,  trusting  in  his 
innate  potentialities  to  see  him  through.  This 
type  of  test  saw  its  widest  application  in  connec- 
tion with  the  testing  of  the  United  States  Army. 
(See  page  42.) 

Binet-Simon  Test 

The  science  of  mental  testing  made  its  first 
substantial  beginning  some  fifteen  years  ago.  In 
1905  an  attempt  was  being  made  in  Paris  to  pro- 
vide special  instruction  for  abnormal  children,  and 
the  new  arrangement  provided  that  a  mental  ex- 


MENTAL  TESTS  33 

amination  of  each  child  must  be  made  before 
assigning  him  to  a  special  school.  To  meet  this 
emergency,  Messieurs  Alfred  Binet  and  Th. 
Simon,  brought  forward  a  series  of  tests  adapted 
for  children  of  different  ages. 

This  series  consisted  of  some  thirty  tests, 
simple,  and  easily  understood.  They  had  been 
given  to  large  numbers  of  children  of  each  of  the 
ages  from  three  to  eleven  and  were  arranged  in 
groups  of  those  which  the  average  five-year-old 
child  would  pass,  those  which  a  seven-year-old 
child  could  master,  etc.  The  retardation  of  sub- 
normal children  could  then  be  estimated  by  a  com- 
parison with  the  standards  thus  established. 
These  tests  were  designed  to  measure  a  child's 
native  ability  rather  than  his  erudition  or  the 
amount  of  his  scholastic  attainments.  They  were 
given  individually  and  were  for  the  most  part  de- 
pendent on  an  oral  response. 

Binet  and  Simon  revised  these  tests  in  1908 
and  again  in  191 1.  The  series  was  adapted  and 
given  to  school  groups  of  various  sizes  in  England, 
Germany,  and  Belgium.  In  19 12,  Dr.  H.  H. 
Goddard,  then  on  the  staff  of  the  Vineland  School 
for  the  Feeble-Minded,  translated  the  work  of 
these  authors  and  was  the  first  to  make  extensive 
use  of  it  in  America.  His  work  was  done  on  a 
large  number  of  cases  and  has  attracted  much 


34  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

popular  interest.  Goddard's  results  were  very- 
spectacular  and  were  purposely  used  as  a  method 
of  propaganda  for  directing  attention  to  the  prob- 
lem of  the  feeble-minded  and  the  necessity  of 
providing  means  for  dealing  with  them. 

Modifications 

Numerous  modifications  and  extensions  have 
since  been  made  of  the  original  scale.  Two  of 
these,  appearing  in  print  almost  simultaneously, 
are  of  fundamental  importance  and  have  been  ex- 
tensively used.  One  was  a  revision  made  by  Dr. 
R.  M.  Yerkes,  then  professor  at  Harvard,  and 
two  of  his  assistants.  The  other  was  made  by 
Dr.  Lewis  M.  Terman,  of  Leland  Stanford 
University,  and  is  generally  known  as  the  Stan- 
ford revision. 

In  1 9 14,  Dr.  Helen  Thompson  Woolley  pub- 
lished a  series  of  tests  which  she  had  then  applied 
to  between  seven  and  eight  hundred  children  of 
fourteen  and  fifteen  years  of  age  who  made  appli- 
cation for  work  certificates  in  Cincinnati.  It  is 
generally  agreed  among  psychologists  that  the 
Binet  tests  have  been  most  satisfactorily  applied 
on  younger  children.  As  a  supplement  to  the 
Binet  tests  for  the  younger  years,  Dr.  Woolley's 
tests  have  proved  a  highly  useful  series  of  mental 
measurements. 


MENTAL  TESTS 


35 


Abnormal  Cases 

Aside  from  Dr.  Woolley's  work  it  may  be 
said  that  up  to  the  year  191 7,  when  the  Yerkes 
and  Terman  modifications  came  into  general  use, 
mental  tests  had  been  applied  largely  upon  aber- 
rant groups,  i.e.,  upon  individuals  whose  mental, 
social,  or  physical  characteristics  varied  in  some 
measure  from  the  normal.  They  had  been  used 
in  institutions  for  the  feeble-minded,  in  orphan- 
ages, in  juvenile  and  adult  courts,  in  reformatories 
and  prisons,  and  in  hospitals  and  clinics.  They 
were  used  also  in  surveys  of  selected  districts  or 
particular  groups,  such  as  that  segregated  colony 
of  persons  known  as  the  Pinies,  which  exists  in 
northern  New  Jersey,  or  the  group  of  hookworm 
victims  in  North  Carolina  studied  by  the  Rocke- 
feller Foundation. 

The  chief  practical  function  which  the  tests 
served  in  these  cases  was  as  a  means  of  selecting 
and  classifying  the  feeble-minded.  As  such  the 
work  of  these  earlier  experimenters  has  been  of 
enormous  value.  The  study  of  delinquents,  for 
example,  has  shown  that  in  different  institutions 
a  goodly  number  of  the  prison  population  were 
feeble-minded.  By  means  of  these  figures  public 
opinion  is  being  awakened  to  the  gravity  of  the 
situation. 

Society  is  coming  to  realize  the  necessity  of 


36  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

making  some  provision  whereby  these  incompe- 
tents will  not  be  restored  to  their  old  environments 
after  their  varying  terms  of  imprisonment,  there 
to  be  again  subjected  to  the  very  conditions  that 
experience  has  shown  they  were  unable  to  con- 
tend with.  The  feeble-minded  have  formed  an 
endless  chain  going  in  and  out,  and  again  in  and 
out,  of  our  penal  institutions,  trailing  behind  them 
an  ever-increasing  collection  of  offenses  against 
society.  The  data  which  psychologists  have  ob- 
tained have  pointed  the  necessity  for  some  ade- 
quate way  of  providing,  for  these  individuals, 
means  of  permanent  custodial  care. 

Mental  Tests  in  Schools 

With  the  advent  of  the  Yerkes  and  Terman 
modifications,  however,  mental  tests  came  into 
extensive  use  for  another  purpose.  Attention  was 
being  directed  to  the  enormous  waste,  both  in 
time  and  money,  that  had  resulted  from  malad- 
justment in  our  educational  systems.  Terman 
has  stated  that  in  our  city  schools  from  oAe-third 
to  one-half  of  the  children  failed  to  progress 
through  the  grades  at  the  expected  rate  and  that 
over  lo  per  cent  of  the  $400,000,000  appropriated 
in  this  country  for  educational  instruction  is 
spent  in  "reteaching  children  what  they  have 
already  been  taught  but  failed  to  learn."    At  first, 


MENTAL  TESTS  37 

educators  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  fault 
lay  in  the  school  system  and  in  the  mode  of 
teaching.  While  their  suspicions  were  not  with- 
out foundation,  it  has  been  shown  that  this  was 
not  the  only  operating  factor.  The  fundamental 
error  of  the  school  system  has  been  the  idea  that 
with  properly  individualized  instruction  children 
are  capable  of  progressing  at  the  same  rate. 

One  of  the  greatest,  perhaps  the  greatest 
benefit  that  has  been  derived  from  psychological 
examining,  has  been  to  show  that  intelligence,  like 
most  other  measurable  factors,  follows  the  line  of 
the  normal  probability  curve.  While,  for  practic- 
able purposes,  we  can  class  some  persons  as  "men- 
tally incapable  of  maintaining  themselves  as  inde- 
pendent economic  units,"  we  are  not  able  to  divide 
men  on  the  basis  of  their  mental  ability  into  those 
who  are  feeble-minded  and  those  who  are  not 
feeble-minded.  Rather,  intelligence  tests  have 
shown  us  that  intelligence  varies  by  small  grada- 
tions all  the  way  from  the  helpless  idiot  who  can- 
not learn  to  talk,  walk,  or  feed  himself,  to  the 
mental  acumen  of  intellectual  genius. 

Above  and  Below  Par 

Intelligence  tests  have  shown  that  there  is  a 
dangerous  border-land  peopled  with  persons  too 
intelligent  for  their  mental  defects  to  be  readily 


38  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

recognized,  but  not  sufficiently  clever  to  ade- 
quately adjust  themselves  to  our  present  educa- 
tional, economic,  and  social  standards.  For  such 
an  unfortunate  laggard,  life  is  one  endless  effort 
to  "catch  up."  By  the  time  he  has  learned  the 
multiplication  table  the  class  is  at  long  division, 
and  when  he  has  mastered  fractions  his  fellows 
are  well  embarked  on  decimals.  Or,  maybe,  even 
his  limit  is  fractions;  maybe  the  concept  of  the 
decimal  system  is  one  stage  beyond  that  to  which 
his  mental  capacity  will  carry  him. 

When  these  same  individuals  attain  working 
age  and  go  out  seeking  employment,  they  again 
find  themselves  under  the  same  handicap.  Again 
they  experience  the  same  inability  to  grasp  the 
details  of  an  intricate  job,  to  remember  instruc- 
tions, and  to  profit  by  experience  as  readily  as 
the  average.  Furthermore,  there  is  here  not  even 
the  expedient  such  as  the  schools  afforded  of  re- 
peating the  grade.  Industry  is  not  in  business 
for  its  health,  and  few  second  chances  are  given. 
A  failure  is  fired,  and  "that's  that." 

Mental  tests  have  demonstrated  that  there  is, 
as  well,  a  class  of  superior  individuals  whose 
mental  equipment  would  enable  them  to  progress 
faster  than  the  established  school  system  permits, 
and  whose  superior  intellectual  capacity  fits  them 
for  something  better  than  the  routine  employment 


MENTAL  TESTS  39 

at  which  they  may  be  engaged.  For  these  individ- 
uals the  mental  suffering  may  be  quite  as  great 
as  for  our  other  group.  They  are  faced  with  an 
intellectual  obstruction,  a  kind  of  damming  up  of 
potentialities  against  which  they  can  make  no 
progress.  Tradition  at  once  rushes  in  here  with  a 
flood  of  platitudes  about  true  merit  being  able 
to  overcome  all  obstacles,  that  genius  will  find  a 
way,  and  all  the  ''office  boy  to  president"  anec- 
dotes. This  exemplifies  what  Terman  classes  as 
''one  of  those  dangerous  half-truths  on  which 
most  people  rest  content." 

Truly,  history  does  show  us  many  cases  of 
merit  triumphing  over  seemingly  insuperable  ob- 
stacles, of  genius  blooming  in  a  garret,  and  of 
plowboys  studying  law  by  the  light  of  one  dim 
candle.  Many  of  our  successful  men  of  affairs 
today  really  regard  this  form  of  early  struggle 
as  a  sine  qua  non  for  ultimate  success.  'T  started 
as  a  foot-skinner  at  5  cents  an  hour,  and  now 
look  at  me!"  says  the  superintendent  of  a  big 
packing  plant.  "Why  should  we  have  to  pamper 
the  boys  nowadays  and  see  to  it  that  they  have 
a  chance  for  study  and  the  job  that  best  suits 
them?  If  a  boy  has  the  guts  to  succeed,  he  will!" 
Gladly  we  will  concede  that  the  boys  who  suc- 
ceeded under  these  conditions  did  have  the  guts. 
But  how  are  our  captains  of  industry  so  certain 


40 


SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 


that  there  were  not  boys  with  guts  who  fell  by 
the  wayside?  Like  most  lovers  of  generalities, 
they  take  account  only  of  the  positive  factors  and 
neglect  entirely  to  look  upon  the  negative  side 
of  the  question. 

Even  though  this  recognition  of  differences 
in  mental  capacity  is  most  spectacular  as  applied 
to  the  groups  far  above  and  below  the  average 
in  mental  capacity,  it  holds  true  nevertheless  all 
along  the  line. 

Grading  School  Children 

Against  the  effort  to  employ  intelligence  tests 
for  grading  school  children  we  are  frequently  met 
by  the  statement  ''It's  a  stupid  teacher  that  needs 
mental  tests  to  tell  her  which  children  are  bright." 
That  may  be  true,  but  have  we  no  stupid  teachers  ? 
And  if  stupid  teachers,  why  not  stupid  foremen, 
and  indifferent  foremen,  and  foremen  who  are  too 
busy  with  production  to  observe  the  men  who 
work  under  them  as  anything  other  than  so  many 
hands  to  do  their  bidding.  But  one,  of  course, 
is  merely  begging  the  question  by  this  answer, 
because  there  are  many  intelligent  teachers  and 
many  intelligent  foremen.  Therefore  our  oppo- 
nents have  only  to  hypothesize  such  and  repeat 
their  query,  ''Why  isn't  an  intelligent  teacher  or 
foreman  capable  of  making  a  judgment  on  the 


MENTAL  TESTS  41 

mental  ability  of  those  under  him,  reliable  enough 
to  render  a  mental  test  superfluous?" 

A  little  experiment  made  by  Binet  gives  an 
interesting  answer.  Binet  selected  three  teachers 
of  recognized  ability,  had  them  each  interview 
five  children  whom  they  had  never  before  seen, 
and  pass  judgment  on  the  intelligence  of  each. 
He  sat  in  a  remote  corner  and  observed  the 
method.  The  amusing  result  was  that  in  every 
case  the  teachers  had  recourse  to  some  crude  form 
of  the  much  maligned  test  method,  some  form  of 
question  and  answer  on  the  basis  of  which  they 
made  their  judgment. 

The  difference  between  his  method  and  theirs 
was  purely  one  of  technique.  That  is  to  say,  in 
applying  the  method  the  teachers  made  numerous 
errors  which  a  more  scientific  procedure  would 
have  avoided.  Their  questions,  for  example, 
necessitated  needlessly  long  responses,  or  allowed 
ambiguous  answers,  or  they  were  sometimes  such 
as  could  be  answered  by  "Yes"  or  "No,"  thus 
giving  a  50  per  cent  chance  of  success  by  guessing. 
Some  were  dependent  purely  upon  school  knowl- 
edge. Again,  the  questions  were  not  asked  all 
the  children  in  exactly  the  same  way.  Sometimes 
the  child  was  helped  a  little  in  his  answer,  and 
sometimes  not.  Nor  was  the  same  response 
always  given  the  same  credit,  the  teachers  explain- 


42 


SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 


ing  that  in  some  cases  they  feh  the  child  ''knew 
better."  Moreover,  once  the  interview  was  fin- 
ished, the  standards  of  comparison  by  which  the 
judgments  of  bright  or  stupid  were  made  were 
vague  and  shifting. 

Thus  we  see  that  these  mental  tests,  about 
which  a  sort  of  mysterious  cloak  has  been  cast 
by  the  uninitiated,  are  but  a  standardized  form  of 
the  very  procedure  which  intelligent  persons  com- 
monly apply  in  making  their  judgments.  We  note 
that  their  value  lies  not  so  much  in  the  originality 
of  the  method  as  in  the  technique  of  its  operation. 
Mental  tests  are,  in  fact,  nothing  more  than  com- 
mon-sense judgments,  refined  and  standardized 
by  a  uniform  procedure  and  scoring  so  as  to  rule 
out  as  far  as  possible  the  personal  equation. 

Mental  Tests  in  the  Army 

The  next  big  step  was  made  in  connection  with 
the  testing  of  the  United  States  Army  in  191 7- 
1918.  This  step  was  unquestionably  the  longest 
and  most  important  one  yet  taken.  The  most 
significant  variation  in  mental  test  procedure 
which  occurred  in  connection  with  this  work  was 
the  change  from  individual  to  group  testing.  It 
is  this  change  that,  more  than  anything  else,  has 
rendered  the  use  of  mental  tests  a  practical  pro- 
cedure for  industry. 


MENTAL  TESTS 


43 


The  early  intelligence  tests  of  Binet  and  his 
followers  were  given  strictly  individually.  In  fact 
the  necessity  of  this  was  a  point  strongly  empha- 
sized. The  examiner  was  specifically  instructed 
to  sit  down  with  the  subject  in  splendid  isolation, 
and,  cheerfully  mendacious,  to  welcome  all  his 
utterances  with  a  word  of  praise.  When  one  is 
testing  young  children  or  adults  suspected  of  de- 
fective or  psychopathic  mentality,  it  will  probably 
always  be  necessary  to  employ  this  individual 
method. 

Such  subjects  are  characterized  by  an  instabil- 
ity of  attention  which  makes  it  necessary  for  the 
examiner  to  be  always  on  the  qui  vive  to  spur 
the  subject  on  to  renewed  effort  or  to  prevent  his 
peripatetic  mind  from  wandering  far  afield. 
When  one  is  dealing  likewise  with  groups  of  de- 
linquents or  others  not  readily  amenable  to  dis- 
cipline, this  method  may  often  be  found  desirable. 
When,  however,  we  are  dealing  with  a  relatively 
homogeneous  group  of  normal  individuals,  the 
practice  of  testing  in  groups  has  come  to  be  of 
service.  This  method  has  now  largely  superseded 
the  individual  method. 

The  impetus  for  testing  men  on  a  large  scale 
was  provided  by  the  World  War,  although  psy- 
chologists even  before  this  time  had  begun  to 
realize  the  enormous  expenditure  of  time  involved 


44  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

in  individual  examining.  Thirty  minutes  was  the 
shortest  time  that  was  recognized  as  adequate  for 
an  individual  examination.  At  best,  even  work- 
ing union  hours,  and  assuming  a  perfect  mechan- 
ism in  the  arrival  and  departure  of  subjects,  an 
examiner  was  able  to  complete  but  sixteen  exam- 
inations in  a  day. 

It  will  be  readily  seen,  then,  that  if  one  is 
seeking  to  amass  data  which  shall  provide  norms 
for  a  given  age,  sex,  or  occupation,  there  stretched 
before  the  scientific  psychologist  an  appalling 
vista  of  preliminary  work  which  must  be  accom- 
plished before  the  practical  job  could  be  under- 
taken of  diagnosing  a  man  as  above  or  below  the 
average  for  his  group,  as  committable  to  an  insti- 
tution for  permanent  care,  or  as  suitable  for 
recommendation  to  some  form  of  advancement 
or  promotion. 

Testing  by  Groups 

In  the  summer  of  191 7,  shortly  after  our 
entrance  into  the  war,  American  psychologists 
came  together  and  pooled  the  results  and  methods 
of  their  individual  studies  to  offer  such  means  as 
were  in  their  power  toward  facilitating  the  pro- 
gress of  making  an  army.  The  service  which  they 
were  able  to  render  has  been  recorded  in  prelimi- 
nary form  in  a  small  book  written  by  Majors 


MENTAL  TESTS  45 

Yoakum  and  Yerkes,^  and  is  fully  described  in  a 
government  publication. 

By  the  method  used,  the  number  of  individuals 
who  could  be  tested  at  one  time  was  limited  only 
by  the  capacity  of  the  room  and  the  lungs  of  the 
examiner.  By  this  means,  and  by  a  system  of 
scoring  simplified  by  the  use  of  stencils,  it  was 
possible  to  take  on  a  rush  order  whereby  the  camp 
psychologist  could  test  500  men,  score  the  results, 
and  present  a  report  to  the  proper  authority  in- 
side of  three  hours. 

The  method  thus  worked  out  has  now  come 
into  general  application  wherever  large  numbers 
of  normal  adult  or  semiadult  groups  are  to  be 
tested.  Its  two  main  fields  are  at  present  the 
schools  and  colleges,  and  the  industrial  concerns. 
In  both  these  groups  the  underlying  motive  is 
the  same.  It  is  an  effort  to  try  to  find  out  for 
the  benefit  of  the  student  as  well  as  the  school 
authorities,  for  the  employee  as  well  as  for  the 
management,  something  of  the  inborn  mental 
capacity  of  the  individual,  in  order  that  proper 
advantage  may  be  taken  thereof  in  adjusting  him 
to  the  educational  or  industrial  situation. 

The  Kentucky  farmer,  when  told  by  the 
agricultural  expert  that  he  would  save  time  by 

I  Yoakum,  C.  S.,  and  Yerkes,  R.  M.,  Army  Mental  Tests,  New 
York,  Henry  Holt  &  Co..  1920. 


46  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

feeding  his  razorbacks  on  corn  instead  of  grass, 
replied  "What's  time  to  a  hog?"  One  feels,  when 
diagnosing  the  mentality  of  a  moron  or  a  lesser 
weak-wit,  that  neither  the  individual  nor  society 
as  a  whole  will  greatly  benefit  by  his  being  more 
quickly  restored  to  the  procedure  of  his  usual 
activities.  But  the  slogan  of  the  production 
manager  is  "Time  is  money,"  just  as  the  cry  of 
the  army  training  authorities  was  "Hurry";  and 
it  is  evident  that  one  of  the  prime  requisites  of 
a  mental  alertness  test  which  shall  be  useful  to  an 
industrial  concern  is  that  it  shall  take  as  little  time 
as  possible  away  from  the  business  of  making 
brick. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MENTAL  TESTS  IN  INDUSTRY 

Special  Alertness  Tests  for  Industry 

A  number  of  excellent  mental  tests  for  use 
in  industry  have  been  recently  devised  and  are 
apparently  giving  satisfactory  results. 

The  tests  which  the  organization  with  which 
the  authors  are  connected  has  devised  and  put  into 
operation  in  many  industrial  and  business  con- 
cerns have  the  virtue  that  they  can  be  given  com- 
plete in  fourteen  minutes.  Recently  the  entire 
force  of  an  organization  in  Chicago  comprising 
nearly  five  hundred  persons  was  tested,  and  the 
time  consumed  by  the  entire  operation  was  less 
than  three  hours. 

The  principles  of  army  mental  testing,  mod- 
ified to  meet  industrial  and  commercial  needs, 
were  utilized  in  the  preparation  of  these  tests. 
The  time  limits  were  made  so  short  that  the  most 
alert  person  could  not  make  a  perfect  score.  Each 
test  was  made  easy  enough  so  that  those  less 
mentally  alert  would  be  able  to  score  something. 
The  tests  are  so  designed  that  they  can  be  given 
either  to  individuals  or  to  groups.  They  can  be 
given  by  an  intelligent  clerk  after  a  few  hours  of 
47 


48  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

instruction.  The  mental  alertness  rating  of  as 
many  as  a  hundred  employees  in  an  office  or  de- 
partment can  be  secured  simultaneously  if  a  large 
enough  room,  provided  with  facilities  for  writing, 
is  available.  Scoring  the  papers  is  a  mechanical 
process,  involving  the  use  of  simple  stencils. 
Three  minutes  is  a  conservative  estimate  of  the 
length  of  time  required  to  score  a  paper. 

Objections 

The  employer  considering  the  installation  of 
mental  tests  is  faced  with  the  same  fundamental 
query  that  attends  the  justification  of  the  practice 
of  giving  physical  examinations.  Are  the  benefits 
to  be  derived  from  it,  for  the  worker  and  for  the 
employer,  sufficiently  great  to  counterbalance  the 
disadvantages?  For  the  worker,  these  tests  in- 
volve the  ordeal  of  the  examination  with  its 
attendant  nervous  strain,  the  possible  ridicule 
from  others  not  subject  to  such  requirements,  and 
his  humiliation  in  case  of  a  poor  showing.  For 
the  employer,  there  is  to  be  considered  the  time 
taken  from  production  or  consumed  by  examiners 
of  applicants,  and  the  possible  cutting  down  of 
labor  supply  due  to  objections  to  the  process  on 
the  part  of  applicants. 

We  encounter  at  once  the  same  objection  that 
was  argued  against  physical  examining.     Isn't  it 


MENTAL  TESTS   IN   INDUSTRY  49 

simply  putting  into  the  hands  of  unscrupulous 
employers  another  tool  whereby  they  can  dis- 
criminate against  a  worker  on  a  basis  other  than 
the  real  one  ?  And  this,  too,  is  a  very  wicked  tool, 
for  while  you  may  frighten  a  man  by  falsely  tell- 
ing him  that  he  has  incipient  tuberculosis,  you 
can  cut  his  pride  to  the  quick  by  refusing  him 
employment  on  the  ground  that  he  is  stupid. 

Advantages 

Let  us  try  to  meet  this  point.  Yes,  if  you  are 
assuming  an  unscrupulous  employer,  who  is  ready 
to  go  to  any  length  for  his  own  selfish  ends,  the 
more  tools  that  you  make  available  for  him,  the 
more  damage  he  can  do.  But  the  more  specific 
and  definite  you  can  make  these  tools,  the  greater 
will  be  the  reckoning  when  it  comes  to  a  show- 
down. The  chief  advantage  of  records  of  all 
sorts  is  that  they  afford  concrete  evidence  that 
later  can  be  verified. 

Suppose,  for  example,  an  employer  turns 
down  a  man  because  in  his  judgment  he  ''looks 
sickly  and  seems  stupid."  What  come-back  has 
your  applicant?  He  can  go  elsewhere  and  prove 
that  he  is  neither,  but  how  does  that  reflect  back 
on  the  man  who  deprived  him  of  the  job?  All 
that  can  be  said  is  that  the  employment  man 
made  a  poor  judgment,  and  an  error  of  judgment 


50  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

is  something  so  common  with  all  of  us  frail 
mortals  that  it  would  hardly  be  held  against  him. 
But  suppose,  instead,  a  candidate  has  been  put 
through  a  physical  examination,  and  his  chest 
sounds,  his  blood  pressure,  etc.,  entered  on  the 
record  sheet.  Suppose  he  has  been  given  a  mental 
alertness  test,  and  the  amount  that  he  has  been 
able  to  accomplish  reported  in  black  and  white. 
If,  now,  your  unscrupulous  employer  sees  fit  to 
lie  about  the  results,  the  worker  is  able  to  demand 
the  proof,  or,  if  the  employer  has  attempted  to 
falsify  the  record,  the  worker  has  recourse  to 
other  physical  and  mental  examinations  to  prove 
the  facts. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  employee,  the 
^present  writers  contend  that  being  forced  to  spend 
eight  hours  a  day  on  work  which  is  so  difficult 
as  to  be  a  constant  stram  or  so  easy  as  to  be  dull 
and  tiresome  is  an  especially  refined  form  of  tor- 
ture. We  feel,  therefore,  that  any  means  which 
will  enable  a  man  to  get  himself  adjusted  to  the 
work  which  he  is  mentally  capable  of  handling, 
without  going  through  the  discouragement  of  try- 
ing jobs  and  failing  either  to  be  satisfied  or  to 
make  good,  is  clearly  justifiable. 

From  the  employer's  standpoint  such  advan- 
tages may  be  instanced  as  the  increased  production 
which  results  from  a  proper  balance  between  the 


MENTAL  TESTS   IN   INDUSTRY  51 

ability  of  the  workers  and  the  requirements  of 
the  work,  the  increased  morale  which  results  when 
men  are  successful,  and  the  decreased  turnover 
which  follows  a  man's  being  satisfied  with  his  joh.j 

7 

Classification  and  Adjustment 

It  has  been  objected  by  some  employers  that 
the  problem  is  not  which  man  to  select  from  a 
line  of  applicants,  but  how  to  secure  a  line  to 
choose  from — not  to  pick  applicants  but  to  get 
applicants  to  pick.  The  employer  will  say  to  us, 
''What  good  does  it  do  me  to  know  that  one  ap- 
plicant is  brighter  than  another,  or  that  one  girl 
can  finger  a  typewriter  twice  as  rapidly  as  an- 
other ?  I've  got  to  take  'em  all.  I'm  way  under- 
manned now,  and  I'm  taking  every  man  that  can 
walk  or  talk  and  every  girl  that  can  wiggle  her 
fingers  over  a  keyboard." 

In  answer  to  this  point  we  want  most  em- 
phatically to  reply  I'^Iental  tests  serve  their  great- 
est purpose  not  as  a  method  for  selection  and 
elimination,  but  as  a  means  of  classification  and 
adjustment.  /  You  may  have  the  "Welcome"  sign 
out  for  all  applicants  that  call  at  your  door,  but 
you  do  not  put  them  all  on  the  same  job.  A  large 
industrial  organization  is  a  miniature  world ;  there 
are  mountain  peaks  and  lowly  valleys,  and  long 
stretches  of  level  prairies.     There  are  jobs  that 


52  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

call  for  keenness  of  intellect,  rapidity  of  judg- 
ment, and  originality  of  thinking.  There  are 
other  jobs  where  the  everlasting  monotony  of  a 
repetitive  process  meets  and  adequately  satisfies 
the  needs  of  a  mind  that  fails  in  panic  before  the 
necessity  of  constructive  thinking. 

And  as  there  are  jobs  of  all  sorts,  so  mental 
alertness  tests  have  demonstrated  that  there  are 
individuals  of  all  grades  of  mental  capacity.  They 
range  from  the  brilliancy  of  the  genius  whose  in- 
tellectual acumen  demands  adequate  expression, 
if  not  in  his  work,  then  elsewhere,  to  those  whose 
mental  powers  hold  them  in  the  ranks  of  hewers 
of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  but  who  once  prop- 
erly placed  may  become  satisfied,  self-supporting, 
economically  useful  citizens.  In  this  maladjust- 
ment of  the  mind  of  the  worker  to  the  job  at 
which  he  spends  50  per  cent  of  his  waking  hours, 
we  see  much  that  is  harmful.  On  the  one  hand 
may  be  seen  the  eternal  discouragement  of  capa- 
bilities that  are  held  in  check  by  the  economic 
necessity  of  taking  an  inferior  job,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  infinite  pathos  of  a  mind  set  to  a 
task  beyond  its  capacity.  It  is  the  old  blunder  of 
trying  to  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear 
or  a  sow's  ear  out  of  a  silk  purse.  Lack  of  proper 
placing  is  responsible  for  a  large  percentage  of 
the  failures  to  "make  good." 


MENTAL  TESTS  IN   INDUSTRY  53 

Selection  and  Rejection 

There  may  occur,  in  rare  instances,  the  kind 
of  organization  that  contains  nothing  but  monot- 
onous repetitive  jobs,  or  on  the  contrary,  the  sort 
of  business  where  all  workers  must  be  of  high- 
grade  mentality.  Here,  then,  is  the  occasional 
place  where  mental  tests  would  serve  the  function 
of  selection  and  rejection.  Employers  are  gen- 
erally quite  willing  to  see  one-half  of  this  point. 
They  are  entirely  hospitable  to  the  idea  of  turning 
away  the  stupid  applicant  as  unfit  for  employment, 
but  only  ''once  in  a  blue  moon"  will  you  find  an 
employer  who  rejects  a  worker  on  the  ground  that 
he  is  too  good  for  the  job. 

The  contention  always  is:  If  a  stupid  man 
can  do  this  job  all  right,  a  bright  man  can  do  it 
50  per  cent  better.  If  you  really  believe  this 
statement,  try  it  out  on  yourself.  After  you  have 
spent  Monday  working  out  a  new  sales  policy  or 
arguing  before  your  board  of  directors  your  pet 
scheme  for  improved  distribution,  you  go  home 
to  dinner  with  that  warm  glow  of  satisfaction 
that  comes  from  a  hard  day  well  spent.  Now,  on 
Tuesday,  give  one  of  your  minor  clerks  a  vacation 
and  spend  the  day  copying  figures  from  sales 
slips  into  a  ledger.  Just  that !  How  many  times 
will  you  consult  your  Ingersoll?  How  many 
times  will  you  look  up  when  a  door  slams  or  a 


54  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

bell  rings?  How  many  times  will  you  stop  to 
sharpen  an  unnecessary  lead  pencil,  or  chat  with 
another  clerk?  How  many  mistakes  will  you 
make  after  you  have  been  at  it  a  bit?  And  how 
many  times  will  you  curse  yourself  for  trying  a 
fool  experiment  that  you  read  about  in  a  book? 
Maybe,  though,  after  you  have  stopped  curs- 
ing, you  will  be  a  little  more  ready  to  realize  that 
different  minds  work  best  on  different  jobs,  that 
it  is  both  mistaken  charity  and  poor  business  to 
put  too  stupid  a  man  on  too  good  a  job,  or  too 
clever  a  man  on  too  poor  a  job.  So,  after  you 
have  learned  something  of  the  mental  ability  of 
one  of  your  men,  go  through  your  organization 
with  a  fine-tooth  comb  and  see  if  there  isn't  some 
spot  where  he  will  fit  in  and  then — and  only  then 
— if  you  can  find  none,  send  him  on  to  another 
employer  who  may  have  the  proper  opening. 

Occupational  Groups 

Of  course,  the  next  question  is :  "How  do  I 
know  how  much  intelligence  my  different  jobs  re- 
quire? Surely  I  know  that  a  bookkeeper  has  to 
have  more  brains  than  a  trucker,  but  how  can  I 
grade  the  steps  between,  and  how  much  intelli- 
gence does  a  man  have  to  have  to  be  a  bookkeeper, 
and  how  stupid  must  he  be  before  I  recommend 
that  he  take  up  trucking  for  a  life  work?"    Here 


MENTAL  TESTS  IN   INDUSTRY  55 

we  can  get  some  help  from  psychologists  who  are 
working  on  industrial  problems. 

Their  procedure  would  be  along  these  lines. 
Suppose  we  take  all  the  men  in  an  organization 
who  are  working  on  the  following  jobs  :  stenogra- 
phy, bookkeeping,  general  clerking,  and  messenger 
work,  and  give  them  mental  tests.  Then  we 
arrange  the  scores  by  occupations  and  find,  say, 
that  the  averages  are  respectively  these :  men 
stenographers  59,  bookkeepers  50,  clerks  47,  and 
messenger  boys  33. 

There  is  thus  a  clear  hierarchy  in  the  average 
intelligence  of  the  men  in  these  different  occupa- 
tions. Assuming  that  each  group  is  giving  satis- 
factory service,  there  is,  then,  a  clear  gradation 
in  the  intelligence  required  to  do  these  jobs.  We 
can  say  that  a  man  has  to  be  more  mentally  alert 
to  fill  satisfactorily  the  job  of  stenographer  than 
that  of  bookkeeper,  but  that  bookkeeping  calls  for 
more  intelligence  than  clerkmg,  while  those  doing 
messenger  work  are  on  an  average  less  intelligent 
than  clerks. 

Failure  to  Meet  the  Standard 

Suppose,  now,  we  take  any  one  department, 
bookkeeping,  for  example.  You  will  find  that  the 
head  bookkeeper  will  be  the  first  to  admit  that 
those  working  under  him  are  not  equally  efficient. 


56  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

In  fact,  he  will  probably  tell  you  that  some  of 
them  are  distinctly  inferior.  If  you  should  plot 
the  scores  of  all  bookkeepers  in  your  organization 
you  would  probably  find  that  they  group  them- 
selves fairly  well  around  the  score  of  50,  but  that 
you  might  have  occasional  cases  that  scattered  far 
out  from  the  main  group  at  either  end. 

Let  us  consider  first  those  men  to  whom  the 
head  bookkeeper  referred,  those  who  were  not 
doing  satisfactory  work.  You  may  find  an 
occasional  man  reported  unsatisfactory  whose 
score  is  up  to  the  average  or  even  above.  This 
rare  exception  is  at  once  a  case  for  study.  Here 
is  a  man,  mentally  capable  of  doing  the  work  to 
which  he  is  assigned,  but  for  some  reason  he  has 
fallen  down  on  the  job. 

The  task  for  the  personnel  executive  is,  then, 
to  find  out  the  cause  for  this  failure.  Maybe  the 
man  isn't  interested  in  bookkeeping.  Perhaps 
there  are  outside  influences  that  are  keeping  him 
from  giving  his  best  efforts  to  his  work.  Possibly 
he  doesn't  get  along  with  his  department  head  and 
his  failures  are  a  trifle  magnified  and  his  virtues 
a  bit  overlooked.  This  has  happened,  you  know, 
even  with  a  thoroughly  well-intentioned  executive. 
Maybe,  again,  the  fault  lies  in  certain  character 
qualities  entirely  apart  from  his  mental  capacity, 
but  showing  up  in  his  total  efliciency  on  the  job. 


MENTAL  TESTS   IN   INDUSTRY  57 

Study  this  man  and  find  out.  That's  a  job  in 
itself,  but  it  isn't  in  the  picture  here — it  isn't  con- 
cerned with  his  mental  fitness  for  the  particular 
work  he  is  doing. 

Incapacity 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  more  frequent  cases  of 
failure,  the  men  who  trail  off  with  scores  of  19, 
24,  and  30.  Your  department  head  will  generally 
tell  you  that  those  men  don't  seem  to  catch  on 
readily,  that  he  has  sweat  blood  trying  to  bring 
them  up  to  standard.  Some  of  them,  he  will  tell 
you,  are  conscientious  and  try  hard,  but  they  just 
can't  seem  to  make  it.  These  are  the  real  capacity 
misfits,  where  the  "spirit  is  willing,  but  the  flesh 
is  weak."  These  are  the  men  who  should  be  trans- 
ferred into  another  department  or  given  a  differ- 
ent type  of  work.  These  are  the  men  who  are 
sweating  blood  even  redder  than  that  of  the 
department  head.  They  are  trailing  their  job, 
they  are  like  a  dog  chasing  his  own  tail — the  head 
on  the  front  legs  running  like  mad  to  accomplish 
an  impossible  task,  because  the  tail  on  the  back 
legs  moves  just  as  fast. 

Your  department  head  may  also  indicate  one 
of  these  low  scorers  and  tell  you  that  he  has  no 
sympathy  for  that  fellow,  that  he  is  indifferent, 
that  he  doesn't  seem  to  try  to  do  better.     We  are 


58  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

inclined  to  believe  that  this  case  is  as  often  a 
capacity  failure  as  the  other.  If  we  are  not  capable 
of  doing  a  job,  if  we  are  not  making  progress, 
how  long  can  many  of  us  retain  sufficient  interest 
to  keep  steadily  trying  ?  Ask  the  non-musical  son 
of  an  ambitious  mother  how  conscientiously  in 
his  youth  he  practiced  on  his  fiddle.  It  is  poor 
charity  to  let  a  man  stay  a  failure  in  one  sphere 
when  he  might  be  a  success  in  another,  and  it  is 
up  to  the  personnel  executive  to  transfer  these 
stragglers  to  jobs  where  their  mental  alertness 
scores  rank  up  with  the  average  of  the  workers 
thereon. 

Establishing  an  Average  Grade 

By  study  of  a  sufficient  number  of  cases,  you 
will  be  enabled  to  establish  a  critical  score  below 
which  it  is  inadvisable  to  hire  a  man  for  the  job 
of  bookkeeping  unless  (and  this  point  must  always 
be  kept  in  mind)  there  are  other  unusual  circum- 
stances that  render  it  advisable  in  a  particular 
case.  The  fact  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  that 
critical  scores  in  a  mental  alertness  test,  as  well 
as  all  the  other  guides  in  personnel  administra- 
tion, constitute  simply  general  rules  to  go  by  and 
not  hard-and-fast  laws  that  are  unvarying  and 
inviolable. 

The  action  of  ammonium  chloride  on  calcium 


MENTAL  TESTS   IN   INDUSTRY  59 

hydrate  is  always  to  liberate  ammonia  gas.  Here 
we  are  dealing  with  stable  and  unvarying  causes, 
whose  resultant  action  we  can  predict  with  abso- 
lute certainty.  But  the  behavior  of  the  human 
being  is  subject  to  so  many  unpredictable  varia- 
tions, coming  from  such  unexpected  sources,  that 
when  one  is  trying  to  formulate  the  rules  which 
govern  his  reaction,  the  most  you  can  say  is  that 
this  is  the  way  it  will  probably  occur.  So,  then, 
occasionally  it  may  be  a  wise  procedure  for  your 
organization  to  hire  as  a  bookkeeper  a  man  scor- 
ing less  than  35  on  a  mental  alertness  test.  But 
generally  you  will  find  that  this  is  a  mistake. 

Before  we  leave  this  subject,  let  us  for  a  mo- 
ment consider  that  man  who  jumps  out  of  his 
class  at  the  other  end  and  scores  76.  What  are 
we  going  to  do  about  him?  Your  department 
head  will  raise  a  most  unholy  howl  when  you  sug- 
gest that  this  man's  mental  abilities  fit  him  for  a 
job  in  another  department.  The  same  depart- 
ment head  who  will  smilingly  acquiesce  when  you 
suggest  lopping  off  his  failures  is  not  going  to 
be  so  willing  to  let  you  take  also  his  prize  per- 
former. 

If,  however,  there  is  no  future  for  this  man 
as  a  bookkeeper,  if  he  isn't  being  groomed  for 
an  assistant  head  or  some  other  promotion  in  that 
department,    it   most   assuredly   is    the    duty    of 


6o  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

the  department  head,  much  as  he  should  regret 
his  loss,  to  give  him  a  chance  at  something  more 
suited  to  his  ability.  We  will  go  a  step  further 
and  say  that  even  if  this  chance  lies  outside  of  the 
organization,  the  executive  has  no  right  to  hold 
the  man  back  just  because  he  hates  to  let  him  go. 
In  a  standardized  job,  the  mental  abilities 
needed  for  success  on  that  job  should  group  them- 
selves around  an  average  score  and  fall  within  a 
limited  range  of  scores.  These  ranges  will  over- 
lap on  either  side  with  higher  and  lower  grade 
jobs  of  the  same  general  type,  so  that  a  man  scor- 
ing 50  points  might  be  either  a  bookkeeper  or  an 
invoice  taker  or  a  draftsman,  depending  on  the 
vacancy  open  at  the  time.  But  it  would  be  a  clear 
mistake  to  give  him  a  job  as  messenger  boy,  even 
if  you  had  a  crying  need  for  such  and  he  were 
willing  to  take  it.  It  is,  however,  the  stragglers 
at  both  ends  that  are  out  of  place,  that  need  to 
be  transferred  to  other  fields  where  the  soil  is 
more  suited  to  their  particular  abilities. 


CHAPTER  V 

VARIOUS  USES  AND  RESULTS  OF 
MENTAL  TESTS 

Mental  Alertness — Group  Differences 

We  have  said  that  by  taking  the  average  scores 
of  employees  on  different  occupations  we  see  that 
different  jobs  require  different  degrees  of  in- 
telligence. We  have  assumed  that  these  different 
departments,  such  as  bookkeeping,  for  example, 
v^ere  functioning  successfully.  This  is  generally 
a  reasonable  hypothesis,  for  the  competition  of 
modern  business  is  such  that  a  v^hoUy  inefficient 
department  is  soon  self-eliminating.  It  is  not, 
however,  always  safe  to  assume  (the  data  which 
we  have  collected  show  the  contrary)  that  the 
same  departments  of  different  organizations  have 
an  equally  intelligent  personnel. 

On  one  occasion,  for  example,  we  compared 
the  women  office  employees  of  four  companies 
on  their  scores  in  mental  alertness  tests.  In  Com- 
pany A  the  average  score  was  29,  in  Company  B 
38,  in  Company  C  42,  and  in  Company  D  46. 
It  is  evident  at  once  that  there  is  a  clear  difference 
in  mental  grade  between  the  employees  of  Com- 
pany A  and  Company  D.     Now  there  are  two 

61 


62  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

explanations  that  might  account  for  this  apparent 
poor  showing  of  Company  A.  One  of  them 
shows  a  real  recognition  of  good  personnel  prac- 
tice; the  other  indicates  poor  business  efficiency. 

The  first  explanation  may  be  that  the  needs 
of  the  particular  business  in  which  Company  A 
is  engaged  are  such  that  the  majority  of  their 
office  jobs  do  not  demand  a  high  degree  of  mental 
alertness.  Company  A,  therefore,  is  doing  exactly 
what  it  should  do  in  employing  workers  whose 
mental  alertness  scores  center  around  29  instead 
of  46,  as  we  find  in  Company  D  where  the  office 
positions  may  call  for  a  higher  type  of  work  and 
a  consequent  higher  grade  personnel. 

In  the  second  place,  it  may  be  that  the  office 
work  of  Company  A  is  as  high  grade  in  nature 
as  is  that  of  Company  D,  and  that  the  failure  to 
secure  workers  who  are  mentally  capable  of  ade- 
quately handling  it  is  a  real  failure  in  selection. 
This  might  be  due  to  a  poor  type  of  labor  supply 
or  to  a  lack  of  effort  or  judgment  in  picking  em- 
ployees, but  it  would  result  in  a  lowering  of  the 
efficiency  of  that  department  and  a  clear  business 
loss  to  that  particular  company. 

Applicants  and  Employees 

In  line  with  this  last  section  comes  the  ques- 
tion of  how  mental  alertness  tests  can  be  of  service 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS  63 

in  giving  an  employer  some  knowledge  of  how 
his  personnel  is  changing  in  the  matter  of  men- 
tally high,  mediocre,  or  low-grade  men.  This 
knowledge  is  equally  important  to  him  if,  after  an 
analysis  of  his  jobs,  he  is  seeking  to  get  more 
mentally  capable  persons  into  his  employ,  or  if  he 
has  decided  that  he  is  now  wasting  good  material 
where  mediocre  would  do  as  well  and  is,  in  con- 
sequence, seeking  that  type  of  employee. 

This  is,  of  course,  assuming  an  extensive 
supply  of  applicants  of  all  grades.  It  is  fully  as 
important  for  the  employer  to  learn  how  his  labor 
supply  is  running;  whether  for  some  reason  his 
particular  organization  is  no  longer  drawing  high- 
grade  people  or  is,  on  the  other  hand,  increasingly 
attractive  to  them.  Once  having  ascertained  this 
fact  he  can  concentrate  his  efforts  on  developing 
the  sources  of  labor  supply  that  cater  to  his  par- 
ticular need. 

In  a  study  of  this  problem  we  have  made  a 
comparison  between  the  woman  office  employees 
and  applicants  of  two  companies.  In  the  first 
company,  the  average  score  of  employees  was  30 
and  the  average  score  of  the  women  who  had 
applied  for  employment  during  a  period  of  six 
months  was  38.  This  company  had,  then,  either 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  begun  to  attract 
a  high  class  of  employees.     In  the  second  com- 


64  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

pany,  the  average  of  the  applicants  was  almost  the 
same,  39.  But  the  average  score  of  the  em- 
ployees was  46.  Here,  then,  the  situation  was 
reversed.  The  type  of  women  coming  into  the 
second  company  was  lower  than  that  already 
there.  By  these  comparisons  the  managers  of 
the  two  companies  were  enabled  to  get  a  line  on 
the  trend  of  their  labor  supply  as  regards  its  men- 
tal capacity  and  to  make  the  necessary  effort  to 
mould  it  to  their  needs. 

Tests  of  Men  and  Women 

One  of  the  first  questions  always  asked  a  psy- 
chologist is  whether  there  is  any  difference  in  the 
general  intelligence  of  men  and  women.  It  is 
asked  sometimes  with  calm  assurance  of  the  an- 
swer, sometimes  with  bated  breath,  and  sometimes 
with  a  belligerent  gleam  that  bodes  ill  for  the 
maker  of  the  wrong  response. 

Various  opinions  have  been  expressed  con- 
cerning the  relative  mental  alertness  of  men  and 
women.  A  mass  of  experimental  evidence  has 
been  accumulated  by  psychologists  that  seems  to 
indicate  that  in  general  there  is  little,  if  any,  sex 
difference  in  mental  alertness. 

These  opinions  and  this  evidence  have,  how- 
ever, no  bearing  on  the  specific  question  concern- 
ing the  mental  alertness  scores  of  men  and  women 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS  65 

office  employees.  There  may  be  and  probably 
are  a  number  of  selective  factors  operating  to 
bring  about  a  real  difference  in  the  scores  of  such 
men  and  women.  At  present  the  facts  at  our  dis- 
posal on  this  point  are  rather  meager.  Whenever 
we  have  had  sufficient  data  for  both  men  and 
women  to  warrant  the  setting  up  of  occupational 
standards,  we  have  found  that  men  on  the  aver- 
age make  higher  mental  alertness  scores  than  do 
women  in  the  same  occupation — that  is,  men  sten- 
ographers score  higher  than  women  stenogra- 
phers, men  clerks  score  higher  than  women  clerks, 
etc. 

Reasons  for  Different  Results 

It  is  not  surprising  that  such  is  the  case.  In 
most  offices  we  find  a  considerable  number  of  men 
securing  office  work  with  the  sole  ambition  of 
winning  promotion  to  higher  executive  positions. 
Such  men,  without  question,  are  above  the  aver- 
age in  mental  alertness.  We  find,  also,  that  there 
are  a  considerable  number  of  men  holding  minor 
executive  positions  in  offices,  although  they  are 
classified  as  clerks  or  stenographers.  On  the 
other  hand,  women  found  in  office  positions  ordin- 
arily have  less  chance  for  continuous  advance- 
ment. They  are  confined  to  the  more  routine 
clerical   positions.      In   all  probability   many   of 


66  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

those  of  unusual  mental  alertness  enter  such  fields 
as  teaching  or  social  work  instead  of  office  work. 

In  two  companies  where  we  have  tested  men 
and  women  office  employees,  we  found  in  Com- 
pany B  that  the  average  score  of  women  is  38 
and  of  men  45.  In  Company  D,  the  average  score 
of  women  is  42  and  of  men  56.  We  have  further 
combined  the  scores  of  office  employees  of  a  num- 
ber of  companies  and  have  found  the  results  to 
bear  out  the  same  point.  The  average  of  the 
women  office  employees  was  38  and  of  the  men 
in  the  same  occupations  49. 

In  comparison  with  this  data  may  be  cited 
the  results  obtained  from  testing  (by  the  same 
method)  the  men  and  women  of  a  coeducational 
college  of  liberal  arts.  Here  we  found  that  the 
average  of  men  and  women  showed  very  little 
difference,  the  average  score  for  men  being  58  and 
for  women  55.  This  serves  again  to  indicate  that 
the  difference  in  mental  ability  is  not  dependent 
upon  sex  but  upon  the  type  of  men  and  women 
who  seek  jobs  in  certain  occupations.  In  view  of 
the  suggestions  given  above  this  seems  entirely 
natural. 

"Learning  on  the  Job" 

The  application  of  mental  alertness  tests  to 
the  problem  of  training  is,  as  has  been  earlier 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS  67 

mentioned,  one  of  the  fundamental  functions  of 
tests  in  the  educational  field.  The  grouping  of 
school  children,  not  on  the  basis  of  age  or  the 
number  of  years  they  have  been  in  school,  but  on 
the  basis  of  the  rapidity  with  which  they  can 
learn,  has  been  one  of  the  great  benefits  which 
psychology  has  afforded  education.  By  this  means 
the  slow  learners  are  allowed  to  set  their  own 
pace  and  the  fast  learners  are  not  held  back  for 
the  rest  of  the  group,  but  can  progress  as  rapidly 
as  their  abilities  warrant. 

The  problem  of  training  in  industry  is  a 
phase  of  education  which  is  of  quite  recent  de- 
velopment, but  it  is  one  that  has  come  to  stay. 
The  old  method  of  letting  an  employee  "learn  on 
the  job"  is  being  supplanted  by  some  form  or 
other  of  systematic  instruction.  Employers  have 
come  to  this  because  their  attention  has  been  at- 
tracted to  the  waste  of  material  and  the  length  of 
time  consumed  before  a  new  worker  becomes  effi- 
cient. Less  generally  recognized  is  the  fact  that, 
by  being  forced  to  get  his  information  and  ac- 
quire his  skill  piecemeal  and  haphazard  from  the 
more  or  less  efficient  workmen  around  him,  the 
beginner  acquires  habits  of  manipulation  and 
maintains  gaps  in  his  knowledge  that  it  may  take 
him  years  to  overcome.  Some  form,  then,  of 
systematic  training  is  recognized  among  progres- 


68  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

sive  employers  as  both  necessary  and,  in  the  long 
run,  economical. 

How,  then,  can  mental  tests  assist  the  em- 
ployer in  this  matter?  The  analogy  is  so  close 
as  to  be  self-evident.  The  factory  school,  be  it  of 
the  intensive  vestibule  sort  or  the  more  all-round 
apprentice  type,  receives  pupils  of  all  grades  of 
mental  alertness.  Some  will  learn  one  operation 
rapidly  and  be  ready  to  progress  to  the  next  while 
others  are  still  trying  to  grasp  its  first  steps. 
After  the  instructor  has  labored  with  a  group  for 
a  certain  time,  he  will,  of  course,  realize  this  fact, 
but  a  mental  alertness  test  given  beforehand  would 
have  saved  him  much  valuable  time.  It  would 
serve  likewise  to  give  the  worker  a  satisfactory 
start-off  without  necessitating  discouraging  re- 
adjustment. By  this  means  it  is  possible,  before 
beginning  instruction,  to  group  your  employees 
into  classes  in  accordance  with  their  ability  to 
learn.  The  instruction  in  each  class  can  then  be 
modeled  to  conform  to  the  ability  of  the  pupils, 
both  as  regards  content  and  rapidity  of  progress. 

Classification  by  Education 

As  illustrative  of  the  way  mental  alertness 
tests  can  be  utilized  in  carrying  out  this  modern 
educational  principle  of  classification  according 
to  ability  to  learn,  the  results  of  an  experiment 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS  69 

conducted  under  our  direction  by  the  educational 
department  of  a  large  industrial  concern  are  here 
presented. 

There  was  a  three-year  course  in  this  plant 
designed  to  train  a  group  of  factory  employees 
for  minor  executive  positions.  This  course  was 
designed  to  provide  instruction  in  all  the  major 
production  operations  of  the  plant  and  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  management.  An  attempt  had  been 
made  to  classify  these  student  employees  into 
three  groups,  according  to  their  ability. 

The  first  basis  for  this  classification  was  the 
public  school  record  of  each  man.  High  school 
graduates,  or  men  of  equal  ability,  were  placed 
in  section  A.  Grammar  school  graduates,  or  men 
of  equal  ability,  were  placed  in  section  B.  Men 
having  less  than  eight  years  of  schooling  were 
placed  in  section  C. 

As  time  went  on,  it  became  apparent  that  this 
system  of  classification  was  unsatisfactory.  It 
was  found,  for  example,  that  after  considerable 
time  some  C  men  (with  only  5th  grade  schooling) 
were  really  able  to  do  the  work  of  the  men  in 
section  B.  It  was  then  necessary  to  transfer  them 
to  section  B.  Some  in  section  B  were  found  at 
a  later  date  to  be  really  qualified  to  do  section  A 
work.  It  was  also  discovered  that  some  with  a 
high  school  education  were  able  to  do  only  B 


70  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

work,  although  they  had  previously  been  placed 
in  section  A.  Some  who  had  been  placed  in  sec- 
tion B,  because  of  previous  schooling,  needed  to 
be  placed  in  section  C.  Such  shifting  and  trans- 
ferring from  one  section  to  another  after  the 
course  was  under  way  was  undesirable,  because 
it  wasted  the  time  of  both  instructors  and  students 
and  caused  unnecessary  discouragement  to  those 
who  had  to  be  demoted 

Mental  Tests  as  a  Basis  of  Classification 

The  instructors  desired  to  determine  if  mental 
alertness  tests  would  provide  a  more  satisfactory 
basis  of  classification.  The  results  are  shown  in 
the  accompanying  chart  (Figure  i).  The  score 
of  each  student  employee  is  represented  by  a  dot. 
The  students  were  classified  by  the  instructors 
into  classes  A,  B,  or  C  according  to  the  progress 
they  had  made  in  the  course. 

From  this  it  is  seen  that  the  test  scores  divide 
the  students  with  remarkable  exactness,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  instructor's  classification.  All 
class  A  students  scored  over  41  points  in  the 
tests.  Only  one  class  B  student  scored  more  than 
41  points,  and  the  instructors  stated  that  he  might 
be  a  class  A  man  if  he  applied  himself.  All  but 
three  class  C  students  scored  less  than  23^ 
points.     The  highest  scoring  C  man,  according 


— 

g 

• 

— 

0 
v9 

• 

• 

— 

0! 
0 

• 
• 

• 

• 

S 

$? 

•• 
• 

^ 

tf) 

J\ 

•• 

U 

•• 

z 

•  •• 

• 

5 

•  • 

«^ 

• 

•~- 

• 

• 

• 

< 

• 

•• 

h 

3 

Z 
u 

•• 

^ 

• 

• 

0^ 

•• 

~~ 

N 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

0 

iil 

< 

0                  ( 

) 

0                     I 

5     - 

J 

0 

o 

d) 

>.  1- 

o 

o 

X5 

C/5 

< 

a; 

^ 

H 

o 

en 

w 

c 

Ui 

ri 

<u 

a; 
a 

< 

^ 

aj 

iS 

m 

O 

)^ 

•  p 

•T3 

nj 

C 

CO 


71 


72  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

to  the  instructors,  might  be  a  B  man  if  he  appHed 
himself;  the  other  two  C  men  scoring  more  than 
23  J^  points  were  doing  better  work  in  the  school 
than  the  average  C  men  were  doing.  The  class 
limits  determined  by  the  mental  alertness  tests 
would  thus  seem  to  be  adequate  for  the  classifica- 
tion of  students  in  this  course. 

Such  limits  cannot,  of  course,  be  used  by  other 
courses  or  schools  for  the  purpose  of  classifica- 
tion. In  each  case  it  would  be  necessary  to  de- 
termine the  class  limits  that  would  yield  the 
most  satisfactory  basis  for  classification.  With 
that  accomplished,  however,  a  training  course 
could  better  meet  the  needs  of  its  individual 
students  and  thus  effect  a  desirable  economy  of 
teaching. 

This  experiment  has  been  elaborated  in  detail 
in  order  to  give  the  reader  a  clear  idea  of  how 
this  recognition,  by  testing,  of  different  levels  of 
mental  alertness  can  be  practically  applied  to  the 
educational  situation  in  industry. 

Mental  Alertness  and  Stability 

It  seems  almost  childish  to  comment  on  the 
value  to  an  industrial  organization  of  stability  in 
its  working  force.  After  you  have  selected  your 
worker,  after  you  have  placed  him  and  trained 
him,  the  great  desire  is  naturally  to  keep  him. 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS  73 

What  assistance  can  we  obtain  on  the  problem 
of  stabihty  by  studying  the  mental  ability  of  the 
workers  ?  Mental  alertness  appears  as  a  factor  in 
stability  because  maladjustments  result  when  men 
are  put  on  jobs  they  are  incapable  of  doing,  and 
because  the  wrong  balance  between  intelligence 
and  job  responsibility  produces  dissatisfaction,  in- 
stability, and  desire  for  change  of  work.  We 
quote  now  from  a  report  made  for  one  of  our 
clients.  We  were  studying  the  findings  for 
several  production  departments  of  a  manufactur- 
ing company.  The  470  employees  included  in  the 
investigation  were  asked  whether  they  were  satis- 
fied with  their  present  jobs  or  whether  they  de- 
sired change  of  work.  This  information  was 
then  brought  into  relation  with  the  number  of 
years  each  man  was  retarded  at  the  time  he  left 
public  school,  this  being  the  one  available  indica- 
tion of  mental  alertness. 

The  proportion  of  workers  of  each  degree  of 
retardation  desiring  change  of  work  is  shown,  for 
five  departments,  in  the  accompanying  chart 
(Figure  2). 

Stability  in  Various  Departments 

The  differences  found  in  passing  from  one 
department  to  another  are  striking.  In  the  tool 
department  work  is  high  grade  and  varied.     A 


si 

/■'    t  • 

:^ 

/              w 

r           03C 

J           >i^ 

- 

(         12  : 

'*Q 

("U 

C{J 

If." 

J 



r 

S  ?  8  g  8  ?  1  «  S  2  c 

t 

\\%           \ 

Sl8             > 

8  I  S  ^  S  S.  I  ^ 


°l 

'-   1 

o 

. 

."'       ^2  : 

0 

/         \^  . 

0 

K          ;SS  . 

^5 

X         ^ 

^ 

N      t 

't 

\             Cr       . 

4 



^ 

§  g  2  8  S  &  ?  «  8  2  c 

t 

ti?            « 

«<if            ki 

gs5           >• 

bo 
'> 


1) 

bO 

C 


'5 


Els 

UttZ 


SS5 


bo 

c 
o 

C/3 


74 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS  75 

worker,  to  be  successful,  must  make  many  inde- 
pendent decisions  in  doing  this  work.  Here  the 
greatest  proportion  of  dissatisfaction  occurs 
among  the  workers  who  were  most  retarded  in 
school.  The  stability  increases  as  amount  of  re- 
tardation lessens,  and  then  decreases  slightly 
among  those  who  made  normal,  or  better  than 
normal,  progress  in  school.  Clearly  those  who 
are  more  than  four  years  retarded  are  more  likely 
to  be  dissatisfied  with  tool  department  work  than 
the  group  less  than  two  years  retarded. 

By  contrast  with  the  work  of  the  tool  depart- 
ment, the  work  of  the  inspection  department  is 
largely  *' fool-proof,"  repetitive,  and  monotonous. 
(In  this  particular  industry  it  consisted  simply  in 
passing  crude  castings  through  a  set  gauge  and 
throwing  aside  those  that  were  too  large. )  Here 
the  amount  of  dissatisfaction  is  low  for  those  men 
who  were  very  retarded  in  school.  The  percentage 
of  dissatisfaction  increases  markedly,  until,  for 
those  men  whose  progress  in  school  was  normal, 
90  per  cent  expressed  a  wish  for  some  other  kind 
of  work. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  in  the  inspection 
department  there  were  found  both  the  highest  per- 
centage of  satisfaction  and  the  highest  percentage 
of  dissatisfaction.  This  means  that  in  this  de- 
partment there  is  opportunity,  through  the  right 


^6  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

adjustment  of  mental  ability  to  the  job,  to  secure 
the  highest  stability;  and  there  is  also  danger, 
through  maladjustment,  of  producing  the  great- 
est instability.  From  the  point  of  view  of  job- 
satisfaction,  this  single  occupation  is  both  the 
best  and  worst  in  the  plant — depending  on  the 
extent  to  which  selection  and  assignment  of 
workers  is  based  on  a  consideration  of  the  men- 
tal alertness  of  the  applicant. 

In  both  the  foundry  and  the  gear  and  lathe  de- 
partments, the  men  who  are  most  retarded  are  the 
most  satisfied  with  their  work;  the  men  who  are 
least  retarded  are  almost  equally  content.  The 
greatest  instability  is  found  among  those  who 
occupy  a  middle  ground  in  the  matter  of  retarda- 
tion. This  curious  fact  may  be  understood  when 
it  is  realized  that  in  these  two  departments  there 
are  both  very  low-grade  and  very  high-grade  jobs. 
Low-grade  workers  on  low-grade  jobs,  e.g.,  chip- 
ping and  cleaning,  are  satisfied,  and  they  are  in- 
capable of  the  high-grade  work.  High-grade 
workers  on  high-grade  jobs,  e.g.,  moulding  and 
gear-cutting,  are  satisfied,  and  they  refuse  the  low- 
grade  work.  The  result  is  that  in  these  depart- 
ments the  low-grade  and  high-grade  men  gradu- 
ally gravitate  to  the  type  of  work  for  which  they 
are  fitted.  Men  of  middle  grade,  however,  find 
the  low-grade  work  dull  and  uninteresting;  the 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS 


11 


high-grade  work  is  beyond  their  capacity.  Con- 
sequently, it  is  in  this  group  that  misplacement 
is  most  common  and  desire  for  change  of  work 
is  most  pronounced. 

Necessity  for  Two  Sets  of  Facts 

The  curve  based  on  the  combined  figures  of 
seven  departments  (the  five  shown  and  two 
smaller  ones)  is  unlike  that  of  any  one  depart- 
ment, illustrating  the  danger  of  interpreting  mass 
data  without  proper  analysis.  From  the  total 
curve  alone,  it  appears  that  the  more  retarded  a 
man  was  in  school  the  less  likely  he  is  to  desire 
change  of  work.  This  generalization  is  quite  at 
variance  with  both  the  tool  department  and  the 
assembly  department.  The  total  curve  also  seems 
to  show  that  there  is  little  difference  in  job-dis- 
satisfaction among  those  ranging  from  three 
years  retarded  to  two  years  advanced.  This  gen- 
eralization is  contradicted  by  the  facts  in  the  in- 
spection department  and  in  the  foundry. 

The  results  presented  here  show  clearly  that 
a  man's  intelligence  must  be  considered  in  selec- 
tion and  placement,  not  only  because  it  may  de- 
termine his  ability  to  do  the  work  assigned,  but 
because,  in  addition,  it  is  a  determining  factor  in 
whether  or  not  he  will  like  his  work  and  will  stay 
on  the  job. 


yS  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

The  personnel  manager  needs  two  sets  of  facts 
in  using  mental  alertness  as  an  aid  in  assignment. 
For  each  occupation  he  must  know  what  grades 
of  mental  alertness  are  best  able  to  perform  cer- 
tain classes  of  work.  He  must  also  know  what 
grades  of  mental  alertness  are  most  satisfied  in 
that  kind  of  work.  In  cases  of  unrest  and  in- 
stability in  particular  departments,  the  personnel 
manager  will  be  on  the  lookout  for  an  unsatis- 
factory adjustment  of  job-responsibility  and 
mental  alertness  as  one  of  the  determining  factors 
in  the  situation. 

Benefits  of  Mental  Alertness  Tests 
'  These,  then,  are  some  of  the  ways  in  which  a 
study  of  the  mental  alertness  of  workers  can  be 
of  assistance  in  maintaining  a  stable,  contented, 
and  efficient  working  force.  It  will  help  the  em- 
ployer to  pick  men.  Taken  in  consideration  with 
a  study  of  the  jobs  in  his  organization,  it  will  help 
him  to  place  men.  It  will  help  him  in  training 
men,  and  after  training,  in  adjusting  them  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  increased  efficiency.  Finally, 
as  a  result  of  this  adequate  placement  and  ad- 
justment, it  will  help  him  to  keep  men  in  his 
organization,  because  of  the  fact  that  they  are 
doing  work  that  is  within  the  range  of  their  men- 
tal capacities. 


RESULTS  OF  MENTAL  TESTS  79 

Just  a  word  of  warning  here.  Don't  let  the 
idea  be  gathered  that  this  process  is  something 
that  is  now  complete  and  perfected,  and  that  all 
that  remains  to  do  is  to  ''place  an  order,"  in  order 
to  have  it  arrive,  signed,  sealed,  and  delivered  in 
a  sanitary  wrapping.  We  have  been  trying  to 
**star"  the  point  that  every  individual  is  different 
from  every  other,  and  quite  as  emphatically  we 
assert  that  every  organization,  even  if  it  be  of  the 
same  size,  make  the  same  product,  and  be  spon- 
sored by  the  same  board  of  directors,  differs  from 
its  brother  organization  in  points  too  many  to 
enumerate.  There  must  be  individual  study  of 
each  organization,  for  things  that  can  be  done  in 
one  may  be  impossible  in  another.  Moreover, 
reliable  mental  testing,  properly  administered, 
means  time  expended  and  money  spent  before 
results  will  be  secured.  But,  in  terms  of  a  ''stable, 
efficient  working  force,"  can  this  means  to  its 
accomplishment  be  neglected? 

Not  Universally  Applicable 

Now,  having  done  our  best  to  make  a  case  for 
the  science  of  mental  testing,  we  hasten  to  show 
evidence  for  the  other  side.  There  is  a  very  real 
danger  in  a  too  ready  acceptance  and  a  too  general 
application  of  the  procedure.  Mental  testing  is 
not  infallible.    It  is  open  to  many  mistakes.  There 


8o  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

are  many  places  where  it  couldn't  be  used  and 
many  places  where  it  shouldn't  be  used.  It  is  no 
universal  panacea,  as  some  of  its  advocates  would 
have  us  believe.  In  fact,  the  conservative  psy- 
chologist has  to  steer  a  careful  course,  lest,  in 
escaping  ridicule,  he  finds  himself  engulfed  in 
credulity. 

The  science  of  mental  testing  is  still  in  its  in- 
fancy— or,  perhaps  better,  in  its  adolescence — 
but  even  in  its  full  maturity  it  is  not  fitted  to 
serve  as  more  than  one  of  a  number  of  instru- 
ments that  may  help  to  allay  the  restlessness  and 
discontent  in  present-day  industry.  Although  in- 
telligence is  probably  the  most  important  factor 
in  determining  success,  used  alone  it  would  be 
entirely  misleading  and  dangerous.  It  touches 
only  one  phase  of  the  conscious  life  of  the  worker. 
It  tells  you  nothing  of  his  desires  and  aspirations ; 
it  gives  you  no  hint  of  the  emotional  forces  that 
may  be  driving  him  in  one  direction  or  another; 
but  it  does  throw  a  sidelight  on  the  most  pathetic 
figure  that  the  imperfections  of  a  civilized  evolu- 
tion have  allowed  to  survive — the  man  who  is  at 
outs  with  his  environment.  As  such  it  is  worth 
while. 


CHAPTER  VI 

TESTING  TECHNICAL  ABILITY 

Technical  Ability 

There  is  another  type  of  test  which  is  some- 
times confused  with  a  mental  test.  This  is  what 
is  known  as  a  ''trade  test,"  and  it  is  a  method  for 
determining  a  man's  proficiency  in  a  given  line 
of  work. 

Let  us,  for  a  moment,  suppose  ourselves  an 
applicant  at  the  door  of  a  machine  shop.  We 
want  a  job.  We  want  it  rather  badly.  The  em- 
ployment clerk,  or  whoever  receives  us,  says,  'All 
we  need  today  are  first-class  lathe  hands.  Can 
you  run  a  turret  lathe?"  Now,  in  our  last  job  we 
worked  for  a  few  weeks  on  a  lathe  and  we  think 
maybe  we  can  get  by  for  a  time,  and  anyhow  we 
want  a  job,  so  we  say,  ''Sure !"  The  man  who  em- 
ploys us  has  dealt  with  many  men  and  he  knows 
that  as  long  as  humanity  is  "four-fifths  human" 
there  will  be  men  who  will  lie  in  order  to  get 
what  they  want.  But  what  is  his  method  of  veri- 
fying our  statement?  He  says,  "Well,  I'll  try 
you!"  He  takes  us  over  to  a  lathe  and  gives  us 
some  stock  and  instructions  for  machining  the 
same.     After  a  few  hours,  or  at  the  end  of  the 

«  8i 


82  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

day  or  the  week,  depending  upon  just  how  long 
it  takes  us  to  meet  our  Waterloo,  he  has  found 
out.  And  his  means  of  finding  out  are  in  terms 
of  ruined  tools,  damaged  machinery,  wasted  mate- 
rial, and  lost  production.  This  is  a  common 
method  of  testing  a  man's  trade  ability — ^to  give 
him  a  work-out  on  the  job. 

The  first  step  toward  economy  in  these  mat- 
ters is  made  where  the  foreman  of  the  depart- 
ment interviews  each  applicant  and  questions  him 
regarding  the  work  in  which  he  is  claiming  pro- 
ficiency. These  questions  are  many  or  few,  de- 
pending upon  the  length  of  time  the  foreman  has 
to  spare  that  morning;  and  are  significant  or 
trivial,  depending  upon  how  adequately  his  think- 
ing apparatus  is  functioning  at  the  moment. 
We  see  here  again,  as  we  earlier  saw  in  the  de- 
velopment of  mental  testing,  the  beginnings  of 
what  has  later  emerged  as  a  standardized  trade 
test. 

Standardized  Trade  Tests 

It  is  again  to  the  army  experience  that  we  owe 
the  great  impetus  for  the  establishment  of  stan- 
dardized trade  tests.  The  table  of  occupational 
needs  for  the  army  listed  751  different  jobs  which 
demanded  men  trained  in  these  occupations,  and 
the  army  was  faced  with  the  problem  of  finding 


TESTING  TECHNICAL  ABILITY  83 

these  men  and  finding  them  quickly.  In  industry, 
we  have  said,  the  foreman  often  encounters  an 
obstacle  in  the  fact  that  a  man  stating  his  qualifi- 
cations for  a  job  will  sometimes  exaggerate  his 
skill.  The  army  had  to  meet  that  obstacle  and 
the  even  greater  one  that  in  order  to  detect  ex- 
aggeration it  would  be  necessary  to  have,  in  every 
encampment  where  assignments  were  being  made, 
men  who  were  skilled  in  one  or  more  of  these  751 
occupations.  This  was,  of  course,  impossible; 
and  the  Trade-Test  Section  of  the  Committee  on 
Classification  of  Personnel  was  established,  under 
the  joint  direction  of  Mr.  L.  B.  Hopkins  and  Dr. 
Beardsley  Ruml,  to  evolve  some  method  of  meet- 
ing the  situation. 

There  is  not  enough  space  here  adequately  to 
describe  the  work  of  this  section,  and  what  was 
accomplished  can  be  only  briefly  summarized.  A 
trade  test  that  would  fit  the  army  needs  must  meet 
three  requirements,  namely : 

1.  It  must  give  a  definite  and  reliable  state- 

ment of  the  grade  of  skill  possessed  by 
the  craftsman. 

2.  It  must  be  sufficiently  simple  and  standard 

for  any  intelligent  man,  knowing  nothing 
of  the  craftsman's  particular  trade,  to 
use  it  satisfactorily  after  only  a  little 
special  training. 


84  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

3.  It  must  be  as  short  and  easily  given  as  is 
consistent  with  accurate  results. 

The  method  of  procedure  followed  was, 
briefly,  first  to  analyze  the  particular  trade  in 
question,  then  to  select  the  essential  elements  of 
information,  judgment,  and  skill,  peculiar  to  that 
trade  and  assemble  them  into  the  form  of  ques- 
tions and  answers  such  as  could  be  given  and 
scored  by  an  examiner  entirely  unskilled  in  that 
trade.  Next,  armed  with  a  blanket  order  from 
the  Adjutant-General,  the  members  of  the  Trade- 
Test  Section  went  out  into  industry  and  tried  these 
preliminary  questions  on  apprentices,  journey- 
men, and  experts  actually  on  the  job.  Novices 
(men  with  no  knowledge  of  the  trade)  were  also 
examined  to  make  sure  that  a  score  could  not  be 
made  in  the  absence  of  trade  skill.  As  a  result 
of  this  trial,  those  parts  of  the  test  most  valuable 
in  detecting  trade  ability  were  selected  and  put  in 
the  form  of  an  army  trade  test. 

This,  then,  briefly  and  inadequately  describes 
the  making  of  a  standardized  trade  test  for  the 
army.  The  method  and  technique  thus  developed 
constitute  the  great  contribution  which  the  Trade- 
Test  Section  has  rendered  to  industry.  It  is  now 
known  that  the  actual  army  trade  tests  are  not 
always  the  best  tests  for  these  same  occupations 
in  industry.    This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  army 


TESTING  TECHNICAL  ABILITY  85 

trade  tests  were  purposely  developed  to  cover 
general  trades,  while  successful  tests  for  industry 
must  cover  subdivisions  of  trades  and  must  test 
trade  proficiency  for  particular  occupations.  The 
army  test  must  accordingly  be  widely  supple- 
mented by  tests  for  workers  in  the  specialized 
processes  of  industry. 

The  Three  Requirements  of  the  Trade  Tests 

Let  us,  for  a  moment,  go  back  and  consider 
more  specifically  the  three  requirements  of  the 
trade  test. 

1.  To  define  the  grade  of  skill  possessed  by  a 
craftsman.  While  there  are  all  degrees  of  trade 
ability  among  the  men  in  any  trade,  for  conven- 
ience a  classification  into  a  few  grades  may  be 
adopted.  The  terms  novice,  apprentice,  journey- 
man, and  expert  are  used.  Novices  are  men  with 
litfte~of  no  trade  ability.  Apprentices  are  those 
who  have  acquired  some  of  the  elements  of  a 
trade  but  have  not  become  sufficiently  skilled  to 
work  without  supervision,  or  to  be  entrusted  with 
any  important  task.  Journeymen  are  qualified  to 
perform  almost  any  work  of  the  trade.  Experts 
can  perform  quickly  and  with  superior  skill  any 
work  of  the  trade  and  are  able  to  lay  out  and  plan 
work. 

2.  It  must  be  sufficiently  simple  and  standard 


86  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

for  an  intelligent  man,  unskilled  in  the  trade,  to 
make  satisfactory  use  of  it.  The  feature  of  the 
trade-test  method  that  makes  possible  this  rating 
of  a  man's  abihty  by  an  interviewer  unfamiliar 
with  the  trade  is  the  fact  that  the  tests  are  stan- 
dardized. Standardization  of  a  test  means  the  test- 
ing of  the  test  by  a  thorough  tryout  among  men 
actually  in  the  trade.  By  finding  out  how  well 
these  craftsmen  of  known  ability  meet  the  test,  it 
is  possible  to  set  standards  by  which  unknown 
men  can  afterwards  be  rated. 

3.  It  must  be  short  and  easily  given.  Trade 
tests  are  of  three  sorts  :  oral,  picture,  and  perform- 
ance. The  first  two  are  given  in  short  interviews 
during  which  the  candidate  answers  a  specified 
list  of  standardized  questions  relating  to  his 
trade.  The  responses  may  be  verbal  or  by  the 
identification  of  pictures  or  samples.  Each  an- 
swer is  scored  as  correct  or  incorrect.  Depending 
upon  the  total  score  made  on  the  list  of  questions, 
the  candidate  is  rated  as  a  novice,  apprentice, 
journeyman,  or  expert  in  that  trade. 

In  such  occupations  as  store  salesperson,  trade 
tests,  or,  as  they  are  more  generally  termed,  de- 
partment interviews,  serve  to  test  the  trade 
knowledge  which  is  one  of  the  essentials  of  good 
salesmanship. 

Performance  tests  are  less  useful  where  the 


TESTING  TECHNICAL  ABILITY  87 

quick  measurement  of  a  man's  ability  is  desired, 
but  they  are  the  only  sort  possible  in  some  occu- 
pations. They  consist  of  a  trial  performance 
under  standardized  conditions. 

Results  of  Trade  Test 

The  purpose  of  the  trade  test  is  to  measure  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  these  various  degrees  of  trade 
skill.  The  test  makes  no  attempt  to  show  a  man's 
general  ability  in  all  lines  of  work;  it  is  limited 
to  the  one  trade  for  which  it  was  made.  More- 
over, the  test  is  not  at  all  for  the  purpose  of  telling 
how  well  a  man  can  learn  the  trade  or  what  his 
future  progress  will  be  in  the  trade.  It  measures 
the  trade  ability  the  man  has  now,  the  skill  he  has 
actually  acquired  in  the  trade  at  the  time  of  the 
test.  Hence  the  test  cannot  be  used  under  any 
circumstances  as  a  means  of  determining  aptitude 
for  a  trade,  or  for  deciding  what  trade  a  novice 
should  try  to  learn.  Trade  tests  answer  this  oneV 
question:  Is  the  man  a  tradesman  or  is  he  not, 
and  if  he  is,  how  good  is  he  in  his  trade? 

Trade  tests  differ  essentially  from  mental  tests 
in  that  they  tell  only  what  a  man's  proficiency  in 
a  specific  trade  now  is.  They  take  no  account  of 
how  long  it  may  have  taken  him  to  acquire  that 
proficiency  or  what  his  possibilities  are  for  be- 
coming more  expert.    In  short,  they  give  his  trade 


88  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

standing    at    the    moment,    but    they    prophesy 
nothing  of  his  future  development. 

What  then,  is  the  service  that  trade  tests  can 
render  to  industry?  Summarized  briefly,  trade 
tests  are  of  value  in  three  phases  of  personnel 
work :  in  hiring  and  assigning,  in  transferring  and 
promoting,  and  in  training.  In  the  selection  of 
new  employees  the  tests  show  whether  the  appli- 
cant really  has  the  skill  claimed  or  the  ability  that 
his  age,  experience,  and  wage  would  seem  to  in- 
dicate. When  there  is  a  question  of  transfer  of 
workers,  the  tests  give  a  knowledge  of  each  man's 
ability — a  means  of  determining  which  workers 
are  competent  to  do  other  work,  which  ones  should 
be  laid  off  if  circumstances  enforce  lay-offs,  and 
which  ones  are  of  greatest  technical  value  for  a 
high-class  work  force.  Information  gained  from 
tests  is  also  closely  connected  with  the  educational 
program.  Lack  of  skill  or  knowledge  in  particu- 
lar phases  of  a  tradesman's  ability  may  be  de- 
tected and  remedied,  and  the  tests  may  be  used 
as  standards  by  which  to  estimate  the  results  of 
training  courses  for  the  various  jobs. 


CHAPTER  VII 

RATING  CHARACTER  QUALITIES 

Difficulty  of  Judging  Personality 

At  a  meeting  of  a  certain  scientific  society  an 
astronomer  was  introduced  as  speaking  on  "The 
Movements  of  Fixed  Stars,"  and  the  geologist 
who  followed  him  announced  that  he  would  talk 
on  "The  Sloughing  Away  of  the  Everlasting 
Hills."  The  present  writers  feel  a  similar  diffi- 
culty in  trying  to  describe  for  you  the  rating  of 
unmeasurable  qualities. 

You  can  count  a  man's  pulse  and  in  terms  of 
his  age  and  weight  ascertain  that  it  is  too  fast  or 
too  slow,  and  how  much  too  fast  or  too  slow. 
You  can  measure  in  thousandths  of  a  second  the 
length  of  time  that  it  takes  him  to  make  a  muscu- 
lar response  to  a  sensory  stimulus.  You  can  give 
him  a  simple  set  of  mental  alertness  tests,  and  by 
counting  the  number  he  is  able  to  solve  in  a  given 
time,  get  a  line  on  his  mental  alertness.  You  can 
ask  him  questions  about  his  trade  which  have 
been  so  standardized  that  the  number  of  correct 
responses  will  indicate  his  grade  of  skill  in  that 
trade.  But  after  you  have  done  all  these  things 
you  do  not  yet  "know  your  man."  You  do  not 
89 


90  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

yet  know  all  the  things  you  need  to  know  about 
him  for  your  advantage  and  his. 
/    Earlier  in  this  book  we  have  said  that  mental 
capacity — pure  intellectual  acumen — is  generally 
the  most  important  factor  in  attaining  success^ 
but  this  is  not  always  the  case  and  it  is  by  no 
means  the  only  factor.     There  are  other  qualities^ 
that  come  into  your  judgment  of  a  man,  qualities 
that  make  you  say,  *'He's  a  brilliant  fellow,  but 
he  doesn't  get  along  with  people,"  or,  "He's  a  dear 
old  chap,  even  if  he  hasn't  got  a  thought  in  his 
head."    There  are  such  things  as  initiative,  leaderA 
ship,  co-operation,  personal  appearance — all  quali-  ] 
ties  that  are  generally  of  value  to  a  man  in  win-  I 
ning  success,  and  the  possession  of  which  by  a( 
man  makes  him  of  value  to  an  organization.    But  i 
how  are  you  going  to  measure  these  qualities? 
How  can  you  say  that  John  Jones  has  50  per 
cent  more  initiative  than  Bill  Smith,  especially  if 
Bill  Smith  is  the  ash  man  and  John  Jones  is  your 
wife's  brother? 

We  are  probably  safe  in  saying  that  every 
one  of  these  qualities  that  go  to  help  make  up  that 
vague  thing  called  ''personality,"  which  is  so  hard 
to  define  but  so  readily  understood  by  all  of  us,  is 
of  moment  to  some  of  a  man's  associates.  They 
are  not  all,  however,  a  matter  of  concern  between 
the  worker  and  his  employer.     Here,  perhaps, 


RATING  CHARACTER  QUALITIES  91 

the  line  of  demarkation  between  honest  inter- 
est and  prying  curiosity  is  most  fine-drawn.  The 
qualities  of  personality  that  affect  a  man's  private 
life  only  are  not  the  concern  of  his  employer.  But 
there  are  other  qualities  that  do  function  in  his 
life  as  an  industrial  unit  of  which  the  thinking 
employer  needs  to  know,  in  order  that  he  may 
make  due  recognition  of  them. 

Selecting  a  Department  Head 

Suppose  you  have  in  your  organization  a  de- 
partment consisting  of  twenty  girls  who  are  typ- 
ing letters.  They  are  all  doing  satisfactory  work. 
Now,  suppose  you  want  to  appoint  from  among 
them  a  head  stenographer  who  shall  have  super- 
vision over  the  group.  How  do  you  do  it? 
Maybe  you  pick  the  one  who  has  been  with  your 
organization  longest.  Perhaps  you  choose  the 
one  who  turns  out  the  greatest  number  of  letters 
per  day.  Possibly  you  feel  the  necessity  of  select- 
ing the  sister  of  one  of  your  lieutenants,  or  the 
wife  of  an  influential  foreman  who  has  been 
threatening  to  make  trouble  for  you.  There  is 
even  a  chance  you  are  so  frail  a  mortal  that  you 
choose  the  prettiest  blonde.  Is  your  selection 
always  a  success? 

Seniority,  it  is  true,  is  a  factor  that  com- 
mands some  sort  of  recognition,  but  the  army's 


92  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

exclusive  dependence  on  it  as  a  method  of  pro- 
motion has  recently  demonstrated  its  inefficiency. 
Proficiency  on  a  specific  job,  too,  deserves  some 
reward,  but  it  does  not  always  follow  that  it 
carries  with  it  the  qualities  that  merit  executive 
authority.  And  as  for  the  others,  if  you  must 
curry  favor  with  your  lieutenant,  let  your  wife 
ask  his  sister  to  a  bridge  party,  or  even  send  a 
box  of  Huyler's  to  the  blonde,  rather  than  give 
authority  to  an  individual  who  has  not  the  per- 
sonal qualities  that  command  such  leadership. 

The  qualities  that  make  an  employee  stay 
twenty  years  with  the  same  organization,  or  the 
capacity  that  makes  a  worker  capable  of  maximum 
production  on  a  given  task,  or  the  particular 
pigmentation  that  characterizes  Titian  tresses  are 
all  valuable  in  their  sphere,  but  they  are  not 
necessarily  the  qualities  that  go  to  make  up  a 
successful  executive. 

What,  then,  are  those  qualities  which  we  are 
claiming  as  essential  for  leadership,  or  salesman- 
ship, or  any  other  occupation  ?  And  how,  in  the 
next  place,  does  one  determine  to  what  degree 
they  are  present  in  a  given  individual  ? 

Different  Opinions  of  Executive  Qualities 

In  191 7  the  following  question  was  submitted 
to  dozens  of  army  officers  of  high  rank  and  other 


RATING  CHARACTER  QUALITIES  93 

executives  in  the  government  departments : 
**What  qualities  are  essential  to  the  making  of 
a  successful  officer?"  After  many  consultations 
and  much  study,  a  list  of  five  qualities  was  drawn 
up  which  seemed  to  embody  the  essential  quali- 
fications. On  these  five  qualities  the  junior  officers 
and  candidate  officers  were  then  ranked  by  their 
superiors  when  promotions  and  commissions 
were  being  considered. 

During  the  last  two  years  the  present  wTiters 
have  submitted  this  question  to  scores  of  em- 
ployers in  industry :  ''What  qualities  do  you 
consider  essential  in  promoting  men  to' foreman- 
ship,  or  other  executive  positions?"  The  lists  of 
answers  received  in  return  have  varied  all  the  way 
from  the  man  who  said  that  the  only  essential 
quality  was  'loyalty"  to  one  w^ho  gave  us  a  list 
covering  two  typewritten  pages.  After  much 
corfsultation,  it  was  found  possible  to  bring  some 
order  out  of  chaos  by  asking  these  executives  to 
analyze  the  opinions  they  had  expressed. 

The  greatest  evil  about  language  is  that  words 
sound  so  nice.  After  we  have  formulated  a  neat 
little  phrase  that  expresses  in  a  succinct,  pithy 
fashion  a  clear  and  definite  opinion  on  a  given 
matter,  we  look  back  upon  this  snappy  little  brain- 
child with  a  real  paternal  affection.  This,  com- 
bined with  a  certain  mental  inertia  from  which 


94  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

few  of  us  are  exempt,  makes  us  loath  to  modify 
his  trim  Httle  shape  by  any  unsightly  exceptions 
that  subsequent  experience  might  seem  to  demand. 
It  is  only  a  really  big  brain  that  can  reason  in  the 
conditional  mode.  The  scientist  says,  'Tt  might 
be  so,  and  if  it  should  be,  such  will  happen." 
Whereupon  if  ''such"  does  not  result,  his  ideas  on 
the  subject  are  still  fluid  and  capable  of  being 
reshaped. 

The  practical  man  of  affairs,  on  the  contrary, 
can  get  no  peace  in  his  mental  household  with 
things  thus  unsettled.  He  says,  'This  is  so,  and 
that  will  happen."  If  he  is  going  to  have  an 
idea  on  a  subject  he  must  have  a  definite  idea, 
and  when  it  is  necessary  to  change  this  idea  it  is 
a  clear  case  of  annihilation  and  rebirth.  If  you 
ask  him  what  sort  of  foreman  Bill  Jones  makes, 
he  will  tell  you,  "He's  rotten"  and  that  "Henry 
Adams  is  a  corker,"  and  if  you  try  to  find  but 
what  makes  Bill  rotten  and  Henry  a  corker,  he 
will  probably  mention  some  quality  that  one  excels 
in  and  the  other  falls  down  on.  And  if  you  seek 
further  for  Bill's  possible  virtues  and  Henry's 
conceivable  vices,  sooner  than  take  a  chance  on 
muddling  his  thinking,  he'll  probably  cut  the 
argument  short  by  telling  you  that  the  one  partic- 
ular quality  he  has  specified  is  all  that  matters. 

Now,  one  of  the  real  virtues  in  this  attempt 


RATING  CHARACTER  QUALITIES  95 

to  estimate  unmeasurable  qualities  is  to  force  the 
man  who  is  judging  men  to  analyze  his  cut-and- 
dried  opinions.  Make  the  employer  you  are 
questioning  consider  the  A  No.  i  foremen  he  has 
known  and  see  what  it  is  in  them  that  has  con- 
tributed to  their  success.  See  if  it  is  always  the 
same  quality  that  has  turned  the  trick.  See  if, 
perhaps,  one  man  doesn't  shine  because  of  excel- 
lence in  one  particular,  while  a  second  owes  his 
success  to  a  different  factor  that  was  only  moder- 
ately developed  in  the  first.  Let  the  employer 
force  himself  to  get  together  these  qualities  and 
decide  which  of  them  are  essential  for  successful 
foremanship  in  his  plant. 

Method  of  Rating  Executive  Qualities 

Here,  for  example  (Figure  3),  is  a  rating 
scale  which  we  devised  for  judging  foremen  and 
other  executives  in  a  number  of  industrial  con- 
cerns. 

There  are  seven  qualities  in  this  particular 
rating  scale.  Now  suppose  that  you  are  trying 
to  select  the  supervisor  of  stenographers  before 
mentioned.  Discard  the  four  earlier  criteria  of 
seniority,  proficiency,  expediency,  and  complex- 
ion, and  analyze  each  one  of  these  twenty  girls 
in  terms  of  these  seven  essential  qualities.  Con- 
sider, first,  the  ability  to  inspire  confidence  and 


hJ 

-I 
< 
O 
0) 

o 
z 

[Z  c 

<  •«. 

o 

i 

Q. 
< 

o 


"S        5 


J'  § 


I -I 

3  t,  >.  a 

5  "^  i  » 


£  II  £ 

llsl 


O    »    B 


«  e   »  ^ 


H5§  § 


ill! 

M     It  2     O 

B   e   aA 

Jlll 


1 

1 

n 

1 

1 

B 

111 

to. 

s 

1 

ql 

=  1 

D 

^aa 

H 

'£ 

Q 

s 

1 

1 

1 

e 

3 

1 

*7 

1^ 

e 

9 

o 

Sg 

1 

<2 

H 

1 

J 

Hi 

5 

—  0 

sp 

'- 

XU 

" 

J  a  •       -o  i  § 

win- 

his 

to  a 

king 

•            nj  *  w    . 

T!    C    *• 

2 

success   in 
tice    and    re 
appearance 

success  in  i 
and  better 
pting     imp 
IS  own  work 

a  e  ^ 

1 

r   his 

>nfidei 

hit 

r  his 

ti  new 

ada 

1  to  hi 

r  hi. 
e    co- 
weld 
nd    e; 

0* 

y.  '-ss  il--j 

:§■£.£- 

JlJfJill 

Cons 
ning 
men. 
loyal 
unit. 

-               C 

96 


Qo 


25 


III 


in 

a! 


!--j 
Ui 


6-65 


.5  o  a 
a  £ 


O 


:3  2  «  *  »»        •"  -  2  s 


£1 


O 

r5 

S 
£ 

o 

G 

"5) 

3 
oj 
O 


97 


98  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

respect  by  her  appearance  and  manner.  Abstract 
this  one  quaUty  from  everything  else  you  know 
about  her  and  consider  it  alone. 

Perhaps  her  twenty  years  of  service  have  lent 
a  dignity  and  importance  to  this  oldest  employee 
that  would  cause  you  to  make  a  check  mark  over 
''Inspiring."  Maybe,  on  the  contrary,  for  all  she 
is  loyal  and  faithful,  she  is  what  the  other  girls 
term  "an  old  freak,"  so  her  check  mark  on  this 
line  must  go  far  to  the  right.  Again,  perhaps 
your  best  worker  excels  also  in  her  ability  to 
inspire  respect  by  her  appearance  and  manner, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  she  may  have  neglected 
this  quality  in  her  desire  for  proficiency.  Con- 
sider only  this  one  factor.  Harden  your  heart  to 
all  other  virtues,  and  coldly  and  impersonally  put 
the  check  mark  where  it  belongs. 

Next  take  up  the  second  quality:  ''Success 
in  doing  things  in  new  and  better  ways  and  in 
adapting  improved  methods  to  his  own  work." 
Study  each  girl  in  the  light  of  this  quality  alone 
and  put  the  check  mark  in  its  proper  place. 

And  so  on  down  the  scale,  considering  one 
quality  at  a  time  until  you  have  rated  all  the 
candidates  upon  all  of  those  seven  qualities  that 
exemplify  the  chief  things  you  are  looking  for 
in  an  executive.  After  you  have  finished  this 
analysis  of  the  twenty  girls,  two  of  your  associates 


RATING  CHARACTER  QUALITIES  99 

independently  repeat  the  process  and  the  results 
of  the  three  judgments  are  compared. 

When  the  individuals  have  thus  been  rated 
separately  on  each  of  these  qualities,  it  is  possible 
by  a  simple  procedure  to  give  a  standard  numer- 
ical value  to  each  place  on  the  scale  where  the 
check  mark  may  fall,  and  by  summing  the  whole, 
to  obtain  a  value  for  each  individual  on  the  sum 
total  of  his  capacity  in  those  qualities  that  go  to 
make  up  a  successful  foreman.  The  essential 
qualities  will,  of  course,  vary  with  the  individual 
job,  so  that  the  rating  scale  which  serves  to 
measure  foremen  would  contain  different  qualities 
from  one  used  to  rate  salesmen,  etc. 

In  this  way,  then,  we  get  a  fair  total  estimate, 
by  forcing  the  superior  to  take  into  account  all 
the  qualities  that  should  be  considered,  and  not 
to  allow  his  judgment  to  be  warped  by  over- 
attention  to  one  particular  quality  in  which  the 
candidate  is  markedly  deficient  or  notably  excel- 
lent. At  the  same  time,  by  this  means,  we  can 
analyze  a  man  and  see  just  how  he  stands  on 
these  different  qualities,  so  that  we  have  some  idea 
of  his  especially  strong  and  weak  points. 

Advantages  of  Rating  Scale 

The  method  of  applying  a  quantitative  rating 
scale  to  these  seemingly  unmeasurable  qualities 


100  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

serves,  first,  to  force  superiors  really  to  analyze 
their  candidates  in  terms  of  the  qualities  that  are 
essential  to  success  in  the  position,  and  to  record 
their  judgments  in  black  and  white.  This  serves 
to  keep  the  man  doing  the  rating  from  making 
snap  judgments  without  proper  study  or  knowl- 
edge of  the  person  he  is  rating.  It  serves,  also, 
to  lessen  the  effect  of  personal  prejudice  which 
unconsciously  often  so  distorts  a  man's  opinion 
of  another  that  he  is  willing  to  call  him  a  ''rotten 
foreman"  when  all  he  really  has  against  him  is 
that  he  lacks  initiative  or  has  a  pug  nose. 

The  necessity  of  putting  our  judgments  of 
men  down  in  cold  figures,  which  may  then  be 
compared  with  the  opinions  of  our  colleagues  on 
these  same  men,  is  an  experience  that  must  be 
tried  to  be  appreciated.  In  most  of  our  social 
intercourse  we  trust  in  two  things :  the  shortness 
of  human  memory,  and  the  belief  that  our  asso- 
ciates will  take  what  we  say  with  some  grains  of 
allowance.  When,  however,  we  record  our  state- 
ments in  black  and  white  we  close  these  two 
avenues  of  escape  for  an  unbridled  tongue.  We 
are  forced,  then,  to  act  less  in  the  mood  of  the 
moment  and  to  weigh  our  judgments  with  care 
and  nicety.  This  is  the  first  value  of  the  rating 
scale — to  secure  opinions  on  a  candidate  wherein 
the  essential  qualities  are  separately  considered 


RATING  CHARACTER  QUALITIES  loi 

and  due  recognition  given  to  each,  so  that  the 
effect  of  snap  judgments  and  personal  prejudice 
may  be  largely  eliminated. 

The  second  advantage  of  this  method  is  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  candidate.  When  you  can 
tell  a  man  fairly  and  impersonally  the  opinion 
that  is  held  concerning  him  by  three  persons  who 
have  the  facts  whereby  to  judge  him,  you  are 
doing  that  man  a  valuable  service.  There  are,  of 
course,  certain  * 'shut-in  personalities"  to  whom 
the  opinions  of  their  fellows  are  of  very  little 
concern,  but  such  men  are  distinctly  pathological. 
The  normal  man  is  a  ''social  animal"  and  the 
great  bulk  of  his  joys  and  sorrows  are  conditioned 
by  the  attitude  of  his  associates  toward  him.  If, 
then,  we  can  show  him,  always  impersonally,  that 
in  the  judgment  of  his  superiors  he  is  falling 
down  on  this  or  that  personal  quality,  w^e  may 
stimulate  him  to  improvement  so  that  he  may 
grow  in  the  estimate  of  his  fellows  and  thereby 
minister  to  his  own  personal  satisfaction. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

JUDGING  A  MAN  BY  HIS  HISTORY 

General  Factors 

When  you  have  learned  something  of  a  man's 
physical  and  mental  ability,  his  trade  skill,  and 
those  personal  quahties  that  are  of  importance  for 
his  industrial  success,  what  other  data  do  you 
need  in  order  to  make  sure  that  he  is  being  given 
the  best  opportunity  that  his  capacity  merits? 
Overlapping  and  underrunning  the  specific  items 
we  have  been  considering  are  certain  general 
factors  which  influence  and  help  to  determine 
them.  They  may  be  divided  under  three  general 
headings :  ( i )  information  about  a  man's  indus- 
trial history,  (2)  information  about  a  man's  edu- 
cational history,  and  (3)  information  about  a 
man's  personal  history. 

Previous  Experience 

The  first  of  these  generally  has  had  the  biggest 
influence  on  a  man's  trade  skill.  The  number  of 
men  coming  into  industry  from  trade  schools  is 
still  so  small  that  we  are  safe  in  saying  that  most 
men  are  indebted  to  their  industrial  experience 
for  the  amount  of  trade  skill  they  possess.  If, 
102 


JUDGING  A  MAN  BY  HIS  HISTORY        103 

however,  you  study  the  record  of  a  worker  in 
terms  of  this  industrial  experience,  you  will  often 
find  a  discrepancy  between  the  nature  of  his  pre- 
vious work  and  the  job  on  which  he  is  now 
engaged. 

You  may  find  that  a  man  has  worked  for  five 
years  at  a  carpenter's  trade  but  is  registered  in 
your  organization  as  a  plumber.  It  may  be  that 
he  voluntarily  took  up  plumbing  and  is  entirely 
satisfied  with  his  choice.  It  may  be,  however,  that 
on  the  day  when  he  stood  at  your  gate  the  only 
job  you  had  open  was  a  plumber's  and  the  eco- 
nomic urge  demanded  that  he  secure  employment 
at  once.  It  may  be  that  during  all  the  time  he  has 
worked  for  you  the  landlord  and  the  butcher  and 
the  shoemaker  have  seen  to  it  that  the  economic 
urge  did  not  lessen,  and  he  has  never  been  able 
to  get  far  enough  ahead  to  risk  throwing  up  a 
plumber's  job  to  seek  a  possible  opening  in 
carpentry. 

This,  then,  is  valuable  information  for  the 
employer  as  well  as  valuable  information  for  the 
employee  to  have  the  employer  have.  Here  is  a 
man  with  two  dififerent  lines  of  industrial  capacity. 
Why  not  take  advantage  of  it?  It  would  not  be 
an  uncommon  thing  in  industry  to  see  this  man 
laid  off  as  a  plumber  on  the  same  day  that  the 
employment    department     was    advertising     for 


104  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

carpenters.  Clearly,  then,  it  is  of  value  for  the 
management  as  well  as  for  the  worker  to  have 
some  record  available  both  of  his  industrial  experi- 
ence previous  to  his  entrance  and  his  progress  to 
date  in  your  organization,  i.e.,  his  jobs,  transfers, 
promotions,  wage  changes,  etc. 

Education 

A  second  general  factor  that  influences  a  man's 
progress  through  industry  is  the  amount  of 
education  which  he  has  had.  This  is  seen  in  the 
fact  that  some  jobs  have  certain  educational  pre- 
requisites; that  is  to  say,  over  and  above  the 
actual  manual  manipulation  of  tools  and  material, 
over  and  above  the  practical  knowledge  that  you 
pull  this  lever  to  start  the  machinery  and  press 
that  pedal  to  speed  it  up,  a  man,  in  order  to  meet 
successfully  the  requirements  of  certain  jobs, 
must  possess  varying  amounts  of  general  knowl- 
edge. He  must  be  able,  for  example,  to  under- 
stand written  instructions  or  to  make  certain 
arithmetical  calculations. 

There  is,  moreover,  another  way  in  which 
education  plays  a  part  in  a  man's  industrial  ad- 
justment which  is  less  directly  evident  but  is, 
nevertheless,  effective.  That  is  the  fact  that  a 
part  of  what  we  mean  by  an  individual's  social 
status  is  dependent  upon  the  amount  of  education 


JUDGING  A  MAN  BY  HIS  HISTORY         105 

he  has  received.  It  seems  rather  absurd  to  advo- 
cate the  recognition  of  "social  sets"  in  industry. 
The  popular  conception  has  been  that  one's 
business  and  social  life  were  distinct  entities,  and 
that  the  modern  hostess  deplores  the  occasion 
when  it  is  necessary  to  ask  her  husband's  business 
friends  to  dinner.  This  is  doubtless  a  hang-over 
from  the  days  when  being  in  trade  was  a  sign  of 
low  breeding,  when  inherited  wealth  was  the  only 
sort  recognized  as  creditable,  and  when  a  "gentle- 
man" was  expected  to  starve  in  idleness  rather 
than  stain  his  escutcheon  with  the  blot  of  labor. 

With  the  change  that  is  fast  coming,  that  is, 
in  fact,  already  here  in  our  conception  of  the  dig- 
nity of  work,  we  find  that  the  personnel  of  in- 
dustry is  becoming  much  more  varied.  The  old 
social  distinction  between  the  working  and  the 
non-working  classes  is  being  broken  down,  and 
a  man's  life  in  the  shop  and  at  home  are  coming 
to  have  more  common  connections.  This  does 
not  mean,  however,  that  social  distinctions  are 
ceasing  to  exist.  They  are  still  present,  perhaps 
not  so  markedly,  as  in  the  previous  generation, 
but  sufficiently  clearly  to  demand  recognition. 

The  case  now  is  that  instead  of  the  difference 
lying  between  those  who  work  and  those  who 
don't  work,  the  distinctions  are,  as  it  were,  intra 
mural.     That  is  to  say,  there  have  come  to  be 


I06  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

social  distinctions  according  to  the  sort  of  work 
done,  the  kind  of  people  who  engage  in  a  partic- 
ular form  of  work,  the  conditions  under  which  the 
work  is  performed,  etc.  There  is,  for  example, 
the  social  distinction  between  women  who  are 
engaged  in  domestic  service  and  those  employed 
in  other  occupations.  There  is  the  social  distinc- 
tion between  men  who  are  willing  to  work  at 
certain  slaughtering  and  butchering  jobs  and  those 
who  will  refuse  to  do  such  work.  There  is  the 
social  distinction,  especially  among  women,  be- 
tween those  engaged  in  factory  work  and  those 
employed  in  the  offices  of  the  same  organization. 

Personal  History 

This  same  social  consideration  overlaps  with 
the  third  general  factor  we  have  mentioned, 
namely,  the  information  to  be  derived  from  a 
man's  personal  history,  and  is,  in  fact,  one  of  our 
chief  reasons  for  gathering  such  information. 
Without  it  you  would,  perhaps,  be  sometimes  at 
a  loss  to  explain  to  a  carping  critic — and  a  sus- 
picious worker  is  your  most  carping  critic — for 
just  what  reason  you  are  recording  facts  about 
his  nationality,  living  conditions,  marital  status, 
and  dependents. 

From  the  employer's  viewpoint  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  such  material  would  be  useful.   By 


JUDGING  A  MAN  BY  HIS  HISTORY        107 

means  of  it  percentages  can  be  calculated  which 
will  help  to  decide,  on  a  basis  of  fact  and  not 
of  surmise,  such  things  as  whether  men  of  one 
nationality  are  especially  valuable  or  worthless  for 
a  particular  kind  of  work,  whether  the  turnover 
is  less  among  workers  who  are  property  owners 
than  among  those  who  live  in  boarding  houses, 
whether  single  men  are  more  adaptable  to  changes 
in  work  than  those  who  are  married.  All  these 
facts  are  of  value  in  an  effort  to  make  a  satis- 
factory adjustment  between  men  and  jobs,  and 
as  a  basis  for  meeting  unforeseen  changes  that 
may  occur. 

That  it  is  of  value  to  the  worker  to  have  a 
record  of  these  facts  in  the  possession  of  the 
management  is  evident  to  one  who  watches  the 
process  from  the  outside.  But  unless  this  infor- 
mation is  collected  with  extreme  tact,  the  process 
savors  of  an  unwarranted  intrusion  into  personal 
affairs  which  is  calculated  to  arouse  suspicion  in 
the  mind  of  the  ignorant  worker  and  resentment 
on  the  part  of  the  intelligent. 

General  Conclusions 

The  authors  of  this  book  feel,  then,  that  the 
direct  value  which  the  worker  receives  in  return 
for  the  information  he  gives  his  employer  about 
these  matters  is  most  evident  in  terms  of  the  social 


I08  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

adjustment  just  mentioned.  Such  facts  as  nation- 
ality, living  conditions,  marital  status,  citizenship, 
education,  kind  of  recreation,  outside  interests, 
etc.,  all  combine  to  place  your  individual  at  some 
point  on  the  sliding  scale  of  social  distinction. 
That  the  scale,  in  this  country,  is  a  gradual  incline 
and  not  a  series  of  separate  steps,  that  the  son 
of  today's  street  sweeper  may  be  tomorrow's 
senator,  that,  in  short,  labor  will  not  stay  put,  is 
a  source  of  present-day  irritation  and  a  cause  for 
future  congratulations. 

That  this  inclined  slope  will  ever  become  a 
plane  surface,  as  our  friends  on  the  extreme  left 
would  have  us  believe,  is,  we  are  inclined  to  think, 
highly  improbable.  A  Soviet  regime  may  elim- 
inate birthrights,  property  distinctions,  educa- 
tional advantages,  and  occupational  grades,  but, 
as  fast  as  it  does,  other  forms  of  snobbery  will 
spring  up  in  their  stead.  This  is  so  because 
humanity  is  not  an  aggregate  of  simple,  uniform 
masses  of  protoplasm.  Men  are  not  like  those 
cell  colonies  of  the  biologists,  where  each  individ- 
ual is  identical  with  every  other  and  all  are  re- 
sponsive to  the  same  stimulus  and  indifferent  to 
the  same  forces. 

We  can  communize  to  the  nth  power  our 
institutions  and  our  social  forces,  but  we  cannot 
control  the  individual's  reaction  to  these  forces 


JUDGING  A  MAN  BY  HIS  HISTORY        109 

nor  the  varying  amounts  of  sustenance  that  he 
will  derive  from  them.  It  may  be  the  most  com- 
munistic, the  most  democratic,  the  most  free-for- 
all  of  primroses  by  the  river's  brim,  but  between 
the  dreamer  who  sees  therein  some  symbol  of  the 
eternal  verities  and  the  "man  of  the  street"  who 
knows  only  that  it  is  yellow  and  a  primrose,  there 
will  arise  grades  of  distinction  that  will  serve  to 
construct  a  new  hierarchy  as  rigid  as  any  based 
on  breeding  or  financial  resources. 


CHAPTER   IX 

ASCERTAINING  DESIRES 

Motives  for  Work 

In  earlier  chapters  we  have  contended  that 
men  are  different  in  capacity,  mental  and  physical ; 
in  attainments,  scholastic  and  technical;  and  in 
those  innate  tendencies  which,  crystallized  by 
habit,  have  come  to  represent  what  we  call  char- 
acter qualities. 

But  these  are  not  the  only  ways  in  which  men 
differ.  They  differ  not  only  in  what  they  can 
do,  but  in  what  they  want  to  do ;  not  only  in  things 
that  they  can  accomplish,  but  in  things  that  appeal 
to  them  as  worth  striving  for.  They  differ  not 
only  in  the  ability  to  perform  a  given  act — 
whether  it  be  a  physical  feat,  a  mental  achieve- 
ment, or  the  meeting  of  a  social  or  ethical  obliga- 
tion— but  in  whether  or  not  the  act  is  for  them 
attended  with  pleasure  or  displeasure. 

You  may  conceive  two  men  absolutely  iden- 
tical in  physical  prowess,  mental  capacity,  and 
character  qualifications,  each  of  whom  is  being 
driven  toward  success  by  an  entirely  different 
stimulus.    The  goal  which  beckons  is  not  the  same 

no 


ASCERTAINING  DESIRES  1 1 1 

for  both.  The  joy  of  Hfe  Hes  here  for  one  and 
there  for  the  other.  As  this  is  true  for  men  in 
general,  so  it  is  true  for  men  in  industry  since, 
in  fact,  the  great  bulk  of  civilized  mankind  is  in 
industry.  If  then  we  want  to  "know  our  men" 
we  must  take  into  account  other  factors  than  the 
things  they  are  capable  of  doing.  We  must  get 
some  notion  of  the  things  that  they  want  to  do 
and  why. 

It  would  be  a  mistaken  attempt  for  us  to 
urge  that  a  worker  be  considered  only  in  the  light 
of  his  wishes,  his  ambitions,  his  esthetic  apprecia- 
tions and  the  things  that  appeal  to  him  as  pleasant 
or  unpleasant.  They  are  all  tangled  up  with  and 
mutually  dependent  upon  his  capacities,  his  habits 
— racial  and  individual — his  economic  advantages, 
his  emotional  experiences,  etc. ;  on  everything,  in 
fact,  that  has  gone  to  make  up  his  life  to  the 
present  moment,  combined  with  that  heritage 
handed  down  to  him  from  his  forebears. 

In  an  effort,  then,  to  present  some  of  the 
motives  that  operate  to  make  an  individual  a 
successful  workman,  some  of  the  incentives  in  a 
job  that  appeal  to  Bill  and  not  to  Henry,  some 
of  the  industrial  experiences  that  are  pleasing  for 
John  and  distasteful  to  Patrick,  we  are  consciously 
creating  an  artificial  situation  in  that  we  are  des- 
cribing only  one  element  of  the  compound. 


112  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Necessity  for  Occupation 

With  this  apology,  then,  let  us  ask:  "Why 
does  a  man  work?"  We  approach  that  question 
with  considerable  curiosity,  like  tired  dog  Dingo 
who  wondered,  "What  in  the  world  and  out  of  it 
made  Old  Man  Kangaroo  hop."  The  answer  is 
simple,  like  the  reason  for  Old  Man  Kangaroo's 
mode  of  locomotion,  "He  had  to !"  So  man  your 
brother,  so  man  yourself,  works  because  he  has 
to,  because  there  is  a  pressure  coming  from  the 
outside  or  coming  from  the  inside  that  leaves 
him  no  alternative.  Nine  out  of  ten  persons, 
ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred,  will  add  the  supple- 
ment, "I  wouldn't  work  if  I  didn't  have  to." 
One  wonders  how  many  of  them  are  telling  the 
truth. 

One  of  the  authors  of  the  present  book  has 
had  opportunity  to  make  extensive  observation  of 
women  confined  in  penal  institutions,  and  an 
interesting  thing  to  witness  is  the  almost  universal 
plea  for  work  that  is  made  after  a  woman  has 
experienced  a  week  or  two  of  real  inaction.  Such 
jobs  as  scrubbing  stairs,  polishing  floors,  or 
cleaning  pots  and  pans,  are  then  looked  upon  as 
special  privileges  and  eagerly  contended  for. 

We  recall  a  woman  who  had  been  for  years 
a  professional  beggar  and  who  had,  as  well,  a 
"flair"  for  petty  larceny  which  eventually  landed 


ASCERTAINING  DESIRES 


113 


her  in  the  state  reformatory.  Her  economic 
history  showed  that  she  had  held  no  jobs  for 
years;  that  she  would,  in  fact,  go  to  any  lengths 
to  avoid  work;  that  she  had  lived  in  squalid 
quarters  which  she  made  no  effort  to  improve; 
that  she  had  woefully  neglected  her  four  children; 
and  that  she  had  eventually  sold  three  of  them  to 
provide  herself  with  funds  and  was  making  de- 
plorable use  of  the  fourth  to  add  an  additional 
appeal  in  begging.  Her  general  reputation  for 
indolence  was  well  summed  up  in  the  close  of  a 
letter,  received  after  her  incarceration,  from  a 
dearly  beloved  enemy:  "I  hope  you  get  enough 
sleep  now,  you  bum."  And  yet  this  woman,  after 
a  period  of  several  weeks  of  enforced  idleness, 
on  being  offered  a  job  as  assistant  dish-washer, 
accepted  it  with  joyous  acclaim  and  went  at  it 
with  an  energy  and  enthusiasm  that  threatened 
the  crockery. 

The  Economic  Motive 

One  wonders,  then,  what  makes  us  work. 
Nine  out  of  ten,  again,  will  answer  "Money,"  the 
economic  urge  that  requires  a  day's  toil  for  a  day's 
bread.  Even  when  one  gets  above  the  mere  sub- 
sistence level,  it  is  still  the  need  of  money  that 
urges  on,  money  that  will  buy  comforts  as  well  as 
provide    sustenance;    and,    still    further    up    the 


114  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

economic  scale,  money  that  will  supply  luxuries, 
that  will  allow  us  to  indulge  our  whims,  that  will 
enable  us  to  gratify  our  ambitions,  that  will  sat- 
isfy our  esthetic  or  intellectual  cravings,  that  will, 
in  short,  provide  the  things  which,  over  and  above 
allowing  us  to  live,  make  it  worth  while  to  con- 
tinue the  process. 

When  the  worker  is  operating  at  what  the 
economists  call  ''the  bare  subsistence  level,"  we 
are  willing  to  grant  that,  as  in  the  case  of  Old 
Man  Kangaroo,  the  push  is  from  behind.  The 
yellow  dog  is  yapping  at  his  heels,  the  wolf  is 
whining  on  his  doorstep,  the  handwriting  on  the 
wall  says,  "No  work,  no  eat,"  and  a  man  labors 
for  the  money  that  will  buy  him  food.  But  while 
we  are  willing  to  grant  that  the  most  frequent 
appeal  to  which  the  worker  responds  is  an 
economic  one,  we  feel  that  employers  in  general 
have  made  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  appeal  the 
only  one. 

The  war  tapped  sources  of  response  that  in- 
dustry never  dreamed  of.  Stimulated  by  the 
national  appeal  of  patriotism,  workers  speeded  up 
production  far  beyond  normal  limits.  Labor 
unions  made  concessions.  A  spirit  of  co-opera- 
tion was  manifested  that  enabled  industry  to 
triple  its  output.  The  war  spirit  was,  of  course, 
an  emergency  measure,  and  it  was  not  to  be  ex- 


ASCERTAINING  DESIRES 


115 


pected  that  it  would  persist  once  the  emergency 
was  over. 

Such  are  the  limitations  of  our  ethical  nature 
that  we  cannot  maintain  these  high  levels  beyond 
the  time  that  necessity  compels — often  not  that 
long.  After  a  hundred  yards  of  running  we  must 
drop  back  into  our  normal  stride,  and  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at  if  an  occasional  one  of  us  sits 
down.  We  have  all  felt  the  "let  down"  after  a 
great  emotional  experience,  and  it  was  clearly  to 
be  anticipated  that  industry  would  undergo  the 
same  phenomenon.  It  is  not  the  intention  to  dis- 
cuss here  this  particular  phase  of  industrial  life, 
but  merely  to  quote  it  as  one  of  the  instances  to 
prove  that  "man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone." 

Even  in  normal  times,  however,  we  maintain 
that  there  is,  for  some  men,  something  in  the  job 
besides  a  meal  ticket.  Let  us  try  now  to  see  what 
other  incentives  we  may  find  that  tend  to  spur  a 
man  to  his  daily  round  of  toil. 

The  Creative  Instinct 

We  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  the  creative 
instinct,  that  desire  which  is  born  in  a  man  to 
accomplish  something,  not  for  the  monetary  re- 
turn therefrom,  not  for  the  personal  recognition 
which  it  may  bring,  but  for  and  of  itself.  It  is 
what  Kipling  tells  of  in  that  millennium : 


•116  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

When  no  one  shall  work  for  money, 
And  no  one  shall  work  for  fame, 
But  each  for  the  joy  of  the  working 
And  each  in  his  separate  star 
Shall  draw  the  Thing  as  he  Sees  it 
For  the  God  of  Things  as  they  Are. 

It  is  that  instinct,  perhaps,  that  accounts  for 
the  little  houses  in  bottles  which  we  see  in  the 
windows  of  small  shoe-repair  shops,  built  with 
such  infinite  care  by  cobblers  in  their  off  moments. 
(Why  this  particular  sort  of  cabinet  making 
should  appeal  as  a  pastime  to  cobblers  is  one  of 
the  mysteries  still  to  be  solved.)  The  instinct  is 
a  very  real  one — the  desire  to  accomplish  a  fin- 
ished product,  to  see  it  complete  before  you  and 
be  able  to  say,  "This  is  mine,  the  fruit  of  my 
hands,  the  child  of  my  brain,  'a  poor  thing  but 
mine  own.'  " 

Modern  industry,  with  its  quantity-production 
methods,  has  resulted  in  an  almost  complete  lack 
of  opportunity  for  the  gratification  of  this  in- 
stinct. Who,  indeed,  can  spend  his  eight  hours 
running  stock  through  a  punch-press  and  chant 
the  while  "This  is  the  fruit  of  my  hands";  or 
look  upon  the  completed  baking-powder  tin  and 
murmur,  "This  is  mine  own."  He  must  indeed 
murmur  softly  because  there  is  the  solderer  and 
the  stamper  and  the  riveter  and  a  host  of  others 


ASCERTAINING  DESIRES  117 

to  dispute  his  claim  to  the  ownership  of  the  fin- 
ished product. 

Although  modern  production  rules  out  this 
appeal  as  an  incentive,  it  is  none  the  less  a  real 
one,  and  a  clever  manufacturer  will  do  well  to 
devote  both  time  and  energy  to  the  job  of  making 
his  workers  feel  an  interest  in  the  finished  prod- 
uct, to  some  obscure  detail  of  which  they  are  de- 
voting one-half  of  their  waking  hours.  Some  of 
the  thinking  managers  of  industry  are  beginning 
to  understand  this.  They  are  coming  to  realize 
that  they  have  had  men  working  in  their  organiza- 
tion for  months  and  even  years  who  still  have  no 
knowledge  of  what  becomes  of  the  parts  which 
they  are  machining  in  such  quantities;  no  idea  of 
what  operations  preceded  theirs  in  the  process; 
no  notion  of  how  their  particular  job  fits  into  the 
scheme  of  things  entire;  how  the  complete  whole 
functions,  or  even  how  it  looks.  Lacking  this 
knowledge,  what  wonder  that  men  see  no  reason 
to  follow  specifications  exactly,  to  be  on  the  look- 
out for  inaccuracies,  or  to  feel  pride  in  careful 
workmanship. 

Thinking  managers  are  here  and  there  begin- 
ning to  realize  this  state  of  affairs,  and  are  deliber- 
ately trying  to  cultivate  in  their  men  an  interest 
in  the  manufacture  of  their  product  by  talks  and 
moving  pictures  of  the  processes,  by  factory  tours 


Il8  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

for  the  workers,  by  awarding  prizes  for  suggested 
improvements,  and  by  other  similar  devices.  One 
of  the  most  encouraging  remarks  we  have  ever 
heard  made  in  industry  was  when  an  assistant 
forelady  in  a  men's  shirt  factory  inveighed  thus 
against  her  passing  foreman:  ''Now  look  at  El- 
mer. He's  got  his  shirt  on  crooked.  What's 
the  use  of  trying  to  get  the  seams  straight  when 
the  men  don't  know  how  to  wear  'em."  Here 
was  a  real  manifestation  of  the  creative  instinct, 
a  protest  against  the  profanation  of  the  work  of 
her  hands. 

How  the  Creative  Instinct  Works 

Taussig  ^  in  his  study  of  "Inventors  and 
Money-Makers"  records  excellent  instances  of  the 
functioning  of  this  instinct  where  one  would  ex- 
pect to  find  it  in  its  purest  form.  He  describes 
the  "incidental  inventions"  of  men  like  Watt, 
Cartwright,  and  Ericsson,  which  were  performed 
"sometimes  with  money-making  intent,  some- 
times in  a  spirit  of  scientific  research  and  some- 
times merely  in  sport,"  and  from  all  of  which 
they  appeared  to  derive  an  almost  equal  enjoy- 
ment. He  quotes  Edison,  who,  after  the  failure 
of  an  elaborate  project  by  which  the  magnetite 


I  Frank  W.  Taussig,  Inventors  and  Money- Making.  New  York,  Th« 
Macmillan  Co.,  1915. 


ASCERTAINING  DESIRES  119 

ores  of  New  Jersey  were  to  be  the  basis  of  a  great 
steel  and  iron  industry,  said,  on  being  told  of  what 
the  venture  had  cost  him,  ''Well  it's  all  gone,  but 
we  had  a  hell  of  a  good  time  spending  it." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  modern  production  is 
quite  unable  to  keep  pace  with  the  creative  in- 
stincts of  our  great  inventors.  We  have  good 
reason  to  believe  that  many  serviceable  devices 
are  passed  by  undeveloped,  and  that  many  of  our 
manufactured  products  function  less  perfectly  on 
the  market  than  do  their  corrected  models  in  the 
workshop  of  their  inventors. 

This  creative  instinct,  sometimes  called  the 
instinct  of  workmanship,  or,  more  technically, 
the  instinct  of  construction  or  contrivance,  is  a 
true  instinct.  If,  as  we  have  said,  "psychology" 
is  one  of  the  most  abused  words  in  the  language, 
that  one  of  its  children  which  suffers  most  at  the 
hands  of  a  garrulous  public  is  the  term  ''instinct." 
MacDougal  says  it  has  been  used  so  loosely  as 
almost  to  spoil  it  for  scientific  purposes  and  that 
it  "is  commonly  used  as  a  cloak  for  ignorance, 
when  the  writer  attempts  to  explain  any  individual 
or  collective  action  which  he  fails  or  has  not  tried 
to  understand." 

However  much  they  differ  in  a  final  definition 
of  this  term,  nevertheless  all  psychologists  would 
agree  that  instinct  is  a  tendency  to  act  character- 


I20  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

istically  in  the  presence  of  certain  stimuli,  a  ten- 
dency which  we  share  in  common  with  our 
brother,  the  coursing  hound,  and  our  sister,  the 
broody  hen.  It  is  in  the  lower  animals — most 
perfectly  exemplified  in  the  insects — ^that  we  see 
instincts  displayed  in  their  purest  form.  Many 
of  them,  by  the  time  they  are  manifest  in  the  adult 
human,  are  so  weakened  and  so  modified  by  per- 
sonal and  racial  habits  as  to  be  almost  unrecog- 
nized. However  much  the  term  has  been  abused 
by  popular  writers,  the  instinct  of  construction 
is  a  true  instinct,  demonstrable  in  the  beaver  build- 
ing its  dam,  in  the  child  with  its  mud  pie,  in  the 
cobbler  with  his  little  bottled  house,  and  in  the 
philosopher  with  his  metaphysical  system. 

Thwarted  Instincts 

A  point  sustained  from  animal  experimenta- 
tion should  serve,  too,  as  a  warning  to  industry. 
This  is  the  fact  that  instincts  thwarted  and  un- 
realized tend  to  atrophy  and  disappear.  Just  as 
a  young  squirrel  raised  in  a  cage  will  in  time 
cease  trying  to  bury  his  nuts  in  the  wooden  floor, 
so  the  industrial  worker,  deprived  of  all  stimulus 
for  taking  an  interest  in  the  work  of  his  hands, 
will  come  to  regard  his  eight  hours  in  the  factory 
as  merely  so  much  time  to  be  disposed  of  with 
the  least  effort  and  the  greatest  financial  profit. 


CHAPTER   X 

OTHER   DESIRES    AND    INSTINCTS 

The  Desire  for  Authority 

Another  appeal  that  is  often  made  much  of 
in  industry  is  concerned  with  the  desire  for  au- 
thority. One  would  suppose  that  such  an  appeal 
was  quite  universal  in  its  extent,  that  no  man 
would  willingly  remain  a  subordinate  if  he  could 
be  a  master.  Here,  also,  we  see  the  functioning 
of  a  primitive  instinct — the  instinct  of  domina- 
tion, sometimes  called  the  instinct  of  pugnacity  or 
predacity.  It  differs  from  the  more  strict  defini- 
tion of  an  instinct  in  that  the  stimulus  is  more 
general,  being  called  forth  by  any  obstruction  to 
the  free  play  of  an  impulse.  It  is  this  instinct 
that  arouses  in  some  of  us  such  a  strong  desire 
to  open  the  door  that  says  "No  Admittance." 
We  once  saw  a  pathetic  appeal  against  it  in  a  sign, 
''Wet  paint,  believe  the  painter."  In  its  most 
obvious  form  it  is  often  accompanied  by  the  emo- 
tion of  anger  directed  against  the  obstructing 
object,  be  it  an  offending  individual,  an  unjust 
demand,  a  stupid  convention,  or  a  short-sighted 
policy. 

The  desire  for  authority,  for  power  pure  and 

121 


122  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

simple  uncomplicated  with  a  desire  for  the  pe- 
cuniary benefit  that  generally  attends  it,  is  plainly 
manifest  in  certain  types  of  politicians.  Many 
of  our  city-hall  monarchs,  of  course,  are  as  much 
concerned  with  the  money  to  be  derived  from 
power  as  with  the  power  itself.  Occasionally, 
however,  you  encounter  a  man  who  seems  to 
have  very  little  concern  for  the  material  benefits 
of  authority,  whose  sole  ambition  is  to  have  his 
word  recognized  as  law  by  his  henchmen. 

We  have  in  mind  the  political  boss  of  a  sec- 
tion of  one  of  the  middle  eastern  states  who  exem- 
plifies this  type.  He  lives  simply  and  without  os- 
tentation, controls  no  industries,  and  has  appar- 
ently amassed  no  wealth  to  leave  to  his  heirs.  He 
is,  however,  the  ''lone  wolf"  of  that  particular 
section,  and  his  word  is  as  truly  law  with  the  body 
politic  as  ever  was  the  command  of  an  Asiatic 
monarch.  The  sole  manifestation  which  he  per- 
mits himself  is  that  on  January  i  every  citizen, 
reputable  or  otherwise,  who  wants  a  political 
office  or  a  city  franchise,  or  a  municipal  contract 
— who  has,  in  short,  an  axe  to  grind  where  politi- 
cal influence  may  whet  its  edge — must  pay  a  New 
Year's  call  on  "Uncle  George."  This  yearly 
pilgrimage  represents  for  him  that  for  which  he 
labors  through  the  remaining  three  hundred  and 
sixty-four  days. 


OTHER  DESIRES  AND  INSTINCTS         123 

In  industry  you  find  some  manifestations  of 
this  instinct.  The  privilege  of  giving  orders  is 
the  only  additional  value  that  is  accorded  a 
''straw"  boss,  and  yet  we  find  it  an  opportunity 
much  coveted  by  some  men.  The  desire  for  au- 
thority and  responsibility  is  clearly  to  be  recog- 
nized as  one  of  the  incentives  that  spurs  work- 
men to  action ;  but  it  remained  for  Whiting  Wil- 
Hams  ^  graphically  to  demonstrate  that  this  desire 
is  not  universal,  that  ''every  man  does  not  want 
to  be  a  foreman,"  that  what  the  great  bulk  of 
unskilled  and  semiskilled  labor  seeks  is  only  "a 
steady  job  and  a  good  boss." 

The  Competitive  Appeal 

Not  unallied  to  the  desire  for  power,  and  per- 
haps a  derivative  from  the  same  instinct  of  pug- 
nacity, is  the  appeal  of  rivalry  or  competition 
which  plays  its  part  in  industry.  Its  most  evident 
manifestation  is,  of  course,  found  in  the  realm  of 
sport.  You  can,  however,  see  it  cropping  up 
among  the  workers  in  industry,  not  only  in  the 
competition  of  business  organizations,  but  in  the 
race  between  gangs  or  even  individuals  for  maxi- 
mum production,  or  in  competition  for  a  desired 
promotion. 


I  Whiting  Williams,  What's  on  the  Worker's  Mind,  New  York,  Chas. 
Scribner's  Sons,  1920. 


124  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

The  Social  Instinct 

If  we  seek  further  for  motives  to  labor  which 
may  be  inspiring  our  workers,  we  come  upon  the 
function  of  what  has  been  termed  ''the  instinct  of 
gregariousness" ;  the  social  pull  it  is  sometimes 
termed — the  tendency  to  herd  with  our  fellows, 
to  be  one  of  a  group.  This  is  a  true  instinct, 
clearly  manifested  in  the  lower  animals.  Galton's^ 
quaint  description  of  the  South  African  ox,  al- 
though it  has  been  quoted  to  the  point  of  exhaus- 
tion, is  again  offered  here.  *'He  displays  no  affec- 
tion for  his  fellows,  and  hardly  seems  to  notice 
their  existence,  as  long  as  he  is  among  them ;  but, 
if  he  becomes  separated  from  the  herd,  he  dis- 
plays an  extreme  distress  that  will  not  let  him 
rest  until  he  succeeds  in  rejoining  it,  when  he 
hastens  to  bury  himself  in  the  midst  of  it,  seeking 
the  closest  possible  contact  with  the  bodies  of  his 
fellows." 

With  this  crude  instinct  as  a  basis,  this  simple 
positive  tendency  towards  oneness  with  a  crowd, 
habit  and  sentiment  have  built  up  such  innumer- 
able reactions  that  we  have  come  to  regard  as 
distinctly  abnormal  a  man  who  shuns  human  re- 
lationships. The  strength  of  this  tendency 
towards  social  companionship  is  demonstrable  by 


2  Francis  Galton,  Inquiries  into  the  Human  Faculty  and  its  Develop- 
ment, New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co.,  1883. 


OTHER  DESIRES  AND   INSTINCTS         125 

the  nature  of  punishment  which  human  society 
has  devised.  Ostracism  was  the  penalty  imposed 
by  the  church  for  grave  ofifenses.  Sending  to 
Coventry  is  the  extreme  torment  which  school 
boys  deal  out  to  an  offender  against  their  code. 
And  in  penal  institutions,  solitary  confinement 
has  come  to  be  recognized  as  so  severe  a  punish- 
ment that  it  is  warranted  only  in  extreme  cases. 
The  manifestations  of  the  gregarious  instinct  in 
play  and  other  recreational  activities  are  evidenced 
in  the  tendency  to  form  gangs,  teams,  clubs,  or 
societies — social,  political,  or  religious — and  fra- 
ternal organizations  of  one  sort  and  another. 

In  industry  we  find  it  functioning  in  the  dis- 
like shown  by  most  workers  for  solitary  jobs.  It 
may  have  played  its  part  in  the  formation  of  labor 
unions,  or  at  least,  in  the  tendency  of  men  to  join 
such  organizations.  It  doubtless  accounts  in 
large  measure  for  the  presence  in  industry  of 
girls  whose  economic  position  would  allow  them 
to  "stay  at  home." 

Prestige  of  Certain  Kinds  of  Work 

Earlier  in  this  book  the  factor  of  social  pres- 
tige as  an  incentive  in  industry  has  been  men- 
tioned. This  social  approval  may  be  conditioned 
by  the  nature  of  the  work.  It  may  involve  the 
contrast  between  head  work  and  hand  work — ^the 


126  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE    « 

distinction  which  is  often  fallaciously  made  be- 
tween office  and  factory  jobs.  This  distinction 
is  probably  more  real  among  women  workers  than 
men.  In  the  factory  itself  the  cleanness  of  the 
job  has  a  distinctive  appeal  for  some  workers. 
Many  women  will  work  harder  for  less  money 
at  a  job  which  does  not  necessitate  the  wearing 
of  aprons  or  other  working  costumes. 

The  prestige  attached  to  the  nature  of  the 
work  may  be  dependent  on  the  hazards  involved 
or  the  extreme  strength  or  resistance  required. 
The  sheet-metal  workers  in  a  rolling-mill,  for  ex- 
ample, are  the  aristocrats  of  that  industry.  Again, 
it  may  be  the  recognized  skill  involved  which 
gives  a  job  the  dignity  that  makes  it  desirable — 
as  the  tool  jig-  and  die-makers  constitute  the  gen- 
try of  the  machine  industries.  Or  it  may  be  the 
responsibility  for  life,  property,  or  firm  secrets, 
such  as  is  held  by  the  locomotive  engineer,  the 
bank  messenger,  the  watchman,  or  the  confiden- 
tial clerk,  which  lends  the  desired  dignity  to  the 
task. 

Again,  this  social  factor  may  be  concerned 
with  the  conditions  that  surround  a  job  or  the 
type  of  persons  that  supply  a  particular  occupa- 
tion. One  of  the  contentions  of  organized  labor 
was  that  certain  types  of  foreigners  were  willing 
to  work  under  conditions  which  a  self-respecting 


OTHER   DESIRES   AND   INSTINCTS 


127 


American  would  not  tolerate.  Many  workers  also 
will  refuse  to  accept  a  job  where  the  great  bulk 
of  the  other  employees  are  'Tolacks,"  ''dagoes," 
or  "coons,"  or  where  the  moral  tone  of  the  work- 
ers is  notoriously  low.  The  lure  of  the  high- 
class  department  store  or  telephone  exchange  for 
many  working  girls  is  likewise  more  conditioned 
by  the  nature  of  the  surroundings  than  by  the 
wages  paid.  The  matter  of  social  approval  is  then 
clearly  an  incentive  that  cannot  be  overlooked. 

Loyalty,  Pride,  Justice,  Sympathy,  etc. 

Not  the  least  of  the  incentives  that  affect 
workers  are  those  conditioned  by  sentiment :  the 
appeal  of  loyalty,  pride,  love  of  justice,  sympa- 
thy, etc.  Employers  have  perhaps  overstrained 
the  loyalty  appeal,  not  so  much  on  its  positive  as 
on  its  negative  side.  They  speak  with  pride,  it 
is  true,  of  the  faithful  service  of  their  twenty- 
year  employees,  but  are  overly  quick  to  brand 
as  disloyal  the  man  who  refuses  to  remain  indefi- 
nitely in  a  blind-alley  job,  who  accepts  a  better 
offer  than  their  organization  is  able  to  provide 
him,  or,  worst  of  all,  who  goes  out  on  strike. 

Likewise  employers  in  general  are  slow  to 
recognize  that  pride  is  a  sentiment  not  always 
conditioned  by  the  possession  of  a  bank  account. 
They  inveigh  loudly  against  a  man  who  refuses  a 


128  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

particular  job  as  beneath  his  dignity.  They  see 
no  reason  why  a  clerk  should  not  be  "bawled 
out"  in  public,  even  though  they  are  careful  to 
close  the  door  before  reprimanding  an  executive. 
Perhaps  the  hardest  lesson  for  the  old-school 
employer  to  learn  is  that  working  men  are  be- 
ginning to  acquire  a  feeling  for  the  abstract  prin- 
ciples of  justice  and  fair  play.  When  you 
thrashed  your  small  son  for  breaking  the  best  tea- 
pot and  later  evidence  disclosed  that  the  crime 
should  have  been  attributed  to  the  cat,  you  could 
dry  his  childish  tears  with  a  ginger  cookie.  So, 
likewise,  when  labor  was  a  childish,  unthinking 
aggregate,  dependent  on  its  daily  toil  to  keep  out 
of  the  bread-line,  when  the  worker  lived  in  daily 
fear  of  the  words,  ''We  won't  need  you  any 
more,"  and  accepted  insults  and  indignities  as  part 
of  the  game,  you  could  remedy  a  flagrant  injus- 
tice by  a  Christmas  bonus.  To  prove  that  times 
have  changed  in  this  respect,  let  us  cite  an  inci- 
dent that  recently  occurred. 

Justice  versus  Benefaction 

The  workers  in  the  men's  clothing  industry 
in  Chicago  were  discontented  because  of  various 
conditions  in  the  industry.  To  reduce  this  discon- 
tent, some  of  the  companies  increased  wages  lo 
per  cent.  Company  X  posted  a  notice  that  on  July 


OTHER  DESIRES  AND  INSTINCTS         129 

I  each  worker  who  had  remained  loyal  to  the  firm 
until  June  13  would  receive  "a  special  extra-pay 
envelope."  This  promise  failed  to  change  the  atti- 
tude of  the  workers.  A  few  weeks  after  the  post- 
ing of  this  notice  the  drive  was  on  for  the  sale  of 
Liberty  bonds  and  the  president  of  Company  X 
purchased  $34,000  worth  of  the  bonds  as  a  gift  to 
his  employees.  Each  worker  was  given  a  coupon 
good  for  his  share  of  the  $34,000  worth  of  bonds. 
The  workmen  manifested  no  appreciation  of  this 
gift.  On  July  I  each  worker  received  a  special 
extra-pay  envelope  containing  a  sum  of  money 
equal  to  that  which  he  had  received  on  the  second 
week  in  May — a  typical  week.  This  generosity  re- 
sulted in  expression  of  discontent  among  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  workers.  The  president  of  the 
company  was  much  disappointed  by  the  failure 
of  his  program  and  called  into  conference  on  the 
subject  the  local  labor  leader. 

The  following  is  the  substance  of  the  con- 
versation between  the  president  of  Company  X 
and  the  labor  leader : 

President  X :  I  can't  understand  the  lack  of  appre- 
ciation of  my  men.  I  gave  them  $34,000  worth  of 
Liberty  bonds  and  a  special  extra-pay  envelope  of  a 
full  v^^eek's  wages.  The  union  agreement  has  now  put 
all  the  firms  on  an  equal  wage  basis.  Although  I  did 
not  increase  wages  10  per  cent  for  the  period  preced- 


130 


SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 


ing  the  union  agreement,  I  have  given  my  men  more 
than  any  other  company  by  the  extra-pay  envelope  and 
also  the  Liberty  bonds.  I  can't  see  what  more  they 
want. 

Labor  Leader:  Yes,  Mr.  X,  you  have  done  all  you 
say  and  your  people  are  not  contented  as  the  people 
are  at  the  other  houses.  They  wanted  the  lo  per  cent 
and  felt  that  they  had  deserved  it. 

President  X:  No,  I  did  not  give  them  the  lo  per 
cent  but  I  did  give  the  extra-pay  envelope  and  the 
Liberty  bonds  which  amounted  to  much  more  than  the 
10  per  cent. 

Labor  Leader:  Yes,  I  have  figured  it  up  and  you 
gave  them  in  extra  pay  and  bonds  somewhat  Over 
$10,000  more  than  they  would  have  received  by  the 
increase  they  ask.  But  that  is  not  what  they  wanted. 
They  do  not  want  the  gift  of  the  extra-pay  envelope 
and  of  the  bonds,  but  they  do  want  the  lo  per  cent, 
even  if  it  is  less  than  the  extra  pay  and  the  bonds.  I 
believe  they  would  be  willing  to  refund  the  $34,000 
worth  of  bonds  if  you  would  give  them  the  $24,000  in 
what  they  regard  as  earned  wages. 

President  X :  Very  well.  I  will  gladly  make  the 
exchange,  for  I  shall  thereby  gain  $10,000. 

Labor  Leader  :  I  think  the  discontent  will  be  greatly 
reduced  by  the  exchange.  I  will  take  it  up  with  the 
people  at  once. 

The  proposition  was  presented  to  the  work- 
ers and  was  accepted  enthusiastically,  even  though 
it  entailed  a  recognized  monetary  loss  to  them  of 
$10,000. 


OTHER  DESIRES  AND  INSTINCTS         131 

Importance  of  Right  Incentive 

Incidents  can  be  multiplied  indefinitely  to 
point  the  importance  of  applying  the  right  incen- 
tive. We  can  go  through  the  whole  category  of 
instincts,  emotions,  sentiments,  and  habits  that 
are  discussed  in  a  textbook  of  social  psychology 
and  match  the  greater  part  of  them  with  incidents 
where  they  functioned  as  incentives.  Let  us  tell 
you,  for  example,  a  story  told  by  Colonel  John- 
son, who  was  connected  with  that  combat  divi- 
sion in  France  which  included  Sergeant  York 
in  its  ranks. 

A  boy  from  the  mountains  appeared  in  a 
southern  camp  during  the  war.  He  was  a  ''con- 
scientious objector."  The  procedure  for  hand- 
ling these  offenders  was  expressible  in  the  phrase, 
**Treat  'em  rough."  In  fact,  the  commanding 
officer  in  this  case  said,  ''Give  him  hell."  Under 
that  treatment  this  mountaineer  would  in  a  few 
days  have  been  sent  to  Leavenworth  as  incorri- 
gible. "Treat  'em  rough"  worked  in  many  cases 
for  the  conscientious  objector,  but  it  would  not 
work  in  this  case.  Then  a  new  officer  was  put 
in  charge,  one  who  tried  new  tactics.  He  ap- 
pealed to  this  conscientious  objector  on  the 
ground  of  duty  and  loyalty.  He  argued  that  it 
was  his  duty  to  advance  the  Kingdom  of  God  on 
earth  and  to  fight  against  the  enemy  of  truth,  and 


132  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

the  red-haired  York  yielded  to  that  treatment  and 
went  to  the  front.  In  a  single  day  with  his  own 
rifle  and  revolver  he  shot  60  officers  and  privates 
in  the  German  army  and  brought  home  183 
prisoners. 

The  motive  applied  was  the  motive  which  ap- 
pealed in  that  particular  case.  A  shift  of  mo- 
tives changed  that  man  from  a  criminal  to  an 
American  idol  and  one  of  the  greatest  heroes  of 
the  American  army.  In  industry  today  we  have 
a  lot  of  trouble-makers,  agitators,  loafers,  people 
who  are  not  interested  in  the  job,  but  some  of 
them  are  as  they  are  because  of  the  treatment 
they  are  receiving.  There  are  some  who  could 
be  converted  into  Sergeant  Yorks  of  industry  if 
they  were  handled  as  wisely. 

The  Industrial  Army 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  stimuli  to 
action  and  some  of  the  goals  that  beckon 
men  in  industry.  These  are  some  of  the  incen- 
tives that  make  sleepy  souls  the  slaves  of  the 
alarm-clock;  that  make  baseball  fans  turn  their 
backs  on  the  open  window ;  that  deny  the  lure  of 
the  after-dinner  nap;  that  drive  the  tired  man, 
and  the  lazy  man,  and  the  pleasure-loving  man, 
and  the  man-that-wants-to-do-something-else  to 
pick  up  his  dinner  bucket  and  join  the  ranks  of 


OTHER  DESIRES  AND  INSTINCTS 


133 


that  procession  which  daily  wends  its  way  from 
the  home  to  the  job. 

It  is  a  long  procession  and  it  has  been  march- 
ing for  a  long  time.  There  is  very  little  glamour 
or  sparkle  about  it.  There  are  wolves,  too,  of 
poverty  and  unemployment  that  snap  at  the  heels 
of  the  rear  ranks.  Here  and  there  is  one  who 
won't  keep  step.  But  it  is  a  glorious  procession 
for  all  that — laborers  worthy  of  their  task.  The 
obligation  rests  with  the  employer  to  see  that  the 
task  is  worthy — not  too  good,  not  too  bad,  but 
worthy — of  its  laborer. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CREATING  OPPORTUNITIES 

Studying  the  Job 

When  the  employer  has  learned  what  his  em- 
ployee is  able  to  do  and  what  he  wants  to  do,  or 
perhaps  even  better,  before  he  attempts  to  ascer- 
tain these  facts,  he  must  know  something  of  the 
opportunities  he  has  to  offer  him.  To  this  end 
he  will  turn  the  searchlight  of  modern  personnel 
administration  on  his  own  organization,  and  by 
its  aid  it  is  safe  to  assert  that  there  will  be  un- 
covered, even  in  a  "model  industry,"  blind-alley 
jobs  and  hazardous  and  distasteful  occupations 
which  the  employer  had  no  idea  existed  there. 

One  of  the  tools  with  which  the  progressive 
employer  goes  about  this  task  is  what  is  known 
as  a  job  analysis  or  occupational  description. 
The  method  of  procedure  is  slow  and  painstaking, 
but  it  is  none  the  less  necessary.  We  cannot 
properly  place  people  in  positions  until  we  know 
what  these  positions  are.  We  must  know  the 
exact  requirements  of  the  job  as  well  as  the  quali- 
fications of  the  worker  in  order  that  the  two  may 
dovetail  into  a  harmonious  adjustment.  Let  us, 
accordingly,  consider  the  jobs  from  the  point  of 
134 


CREATING  OPPORTUNITIES  135 

view  of  the  capacities  and  desires  of  the  men  who 
must  do  them. 

If,  first,  we  look  at  a  job  with  respect  to  the 
physical  qualifications  of  the  worker,  we  must 
know  whether  the  work  is  light  or  heavy.  We 
must  consider  that  a  standing  job  is  unsuited  to 
a  man  with  weak  arches,  and  that  work  that  in- 
volves constant  stooping  or  lifting  is  hard  on  a 
rheumatic  back.  We  must  realize  that  very  fine 
work  calls  for  strong  eyes  or  especially  delicate 
muscular  co-ordination,  and  that  jobs  performed 
under  wet  or  humid  conditions  or  which  necessi- 
tate working  in  a  dusty  atmosphere  are  unsuited 
to  men  predisposed  to  kidney  or  pulmonary  trou- 
bles. As  we  have  earlier  analyzed  our  workers 
under  this  heading,  so  now  we  must  analyze  our 
jobs. 

Fitting  the  Job  to  the  Worker 

^*The  importance  of  obtaining  some  sort  of 
standard  for  the  mental  alertness  required  on 
various  job^has  been  described  in  an  earlier  chap- 
ter. With  these  obtained,  we  will  be  able  to  re- 
cord for  each  job*  a  minimum  point  below  which 
it  is  ordinarily  inadvisable  to  employ  persons  on 
that  particular  work.*  We  will  also  know  some- 
thing of  the  range  and  the^average  mental  alert- 
ness of  the  workers  in  that  occupation,  and  thus 


136  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

be  in  a  position  to  fill  in  the  gaps  so  as  to  obtain 
a  well-balanced  department. 

In  the  matter  of  technical  requirements,  we 
must  ascertain  for  each  job  the  amount  of  trade 
skill  that  is  required  to  do  the  work  satisfactorily, 
i.e.,  some  jobs  necessitate  an  expert  tradesman 
and  others  demand  only  a  journeyman's  skill,  or 
even  less.  We  can  do  this  either  in  terms  of  trade 
tests  or  on  the  basis  of  previous  industrial  ex- 
perience. 

In  line  with  this  we  must  ascertain  the  amount 
of  education,  technical  or  general,  that  is  required 
for  the  job.  We  must  know  if  the  ability  to 
read,  write,  or  speak  English  is  a  necessary  quali- 
fication, or  if  the  ability  to  handle  some  foreign 
language  is  of  value. 

We  must  study  the  job  in  terms  of  so-called 
character  qualifications.  We  must  take  into  con- 
sideration whether  the  occupation  is  one  in  which 
the  worker  comes  in  contact  with  the  public. 
For  example,  a  pleasing  appearance  and  manner 
is  of  importance  for  a  salesman  but  of  little  value 
to  a  trucker.  We  must  discover  if  the  job  is  an 
administrative  one,  so  that  we  may  check  this  with 
the  worker's  qualifications  as  an  executive. 

Some  jobs  require  that  their  workers  should 
be  especially  apt  in  developing  and  training  the 
men  under  them,  and  other  jobs  have  no  such 


CREATING  OPPORTUNITIES  137 

requirements  or  opportunities  for  utilizing  such 
ability.  Some  jobs  demand  that  the  workers 
possess  a  high  degree  of  initiative  or  willingness 
to  go  ahead  on  their  own  responsibility,  and  other 
jobs,  on  the  contrary,  are  supervised  in  every 
minute  detail.  Again,  some  jobs  necessitate  a 
high  degree  of  co-operation  with  other  workers 
in  the  organization,  and  others  allow  a  man  to 
work  in  relative  independence.  We  must  study 
the  jobs  in  the  light  of  all  these  and  many  other 
requirements. 

The  Worker*s  Viewpoint 

We  must  consider  the  job  in  relation  to  the 
general  economic  and  social  status  of  the  worker. 
We  must  know  if  the  particular  job  is  one 
adapted  especially  to  men  or  to  women;  whether 
the  work  in  question  is  the  kind  that  can  be 
handled  by  negroes  or  foreigners,  or  must  be  done 
by  native  whites.  We  must  know  something  of 
the  age  limits  above  and  below  which  we  would 
hesitate  to  employ  people  for  that  particular  work. 
We  must  know  whether  the  job  is  permanent  or 
temporary,  is  on  a  day  or  night  shift,  or  calls  for 
overtime  or  emergency  work.  We  must  know, 
too,  whether  it  is  clean  work,  or  work  where  the 
employee  must  expect  to  become  grimy  and  dirty 
during  his  working  hours,  that  is,  whether  it  is 


138  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

what  we  speak  of  as  an  ''overall"  or  a  "white-col- 
lar" job. 

We  must  look  at  the  job  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  worker's  preferences  and  desires. 
We  must  consider  whether  the  job  is  solitary,  or 
one  where  the  employee  works  with  others; 
whether  it  is  a  purely  routine,  repetitive  occupa- 
tion, or  one  which  contains  some  element  of 
variety.  We  must  know  whether  it  is  a  job 
recognized  as  socially  ''high  class,"  important, 
and  responsible,  or  one  in  which  these  factors  are 
not  involved. 

Furthermore,  by  the  use  of  a  systematic  study 
of  relative  wages  and  wage  increases,  we  must 
ascertain  such  information  as  the  starting  wage, 
the  average  earning  capacity,  and  the  ultimate 
sum  that  a  man  can  hope  to  earn  at  that  particu- 
lar work.  We  must  consider  the  length  of  time 
that  is  required  to  attain  proficiency  on  a  job,  and 
see  to  it  that  there  is  an  adequate  adjustment 
between  that  and  the  other  two  factors  of  start- 
ing wage  and  ultimate  earnings.  It  is  not  un- 
common, for  example,  for  an  employer  to  quote 
to  an  applicant  the  wages  made  by  experts  in  a 
trade  without  giving  him  any  idea  of  the  length 
of  time  required  before  he  can  hope  to  approxi- 
mate that  sum,  through  normal  diligence  and 
progression. 


CREATING  OPPORTUNITIES  139 

Jobs  Lacking  Opportunity 

By  means  of  organization  and  promotion 
charts  based  on  these  occupational  descriptions, 
we  can  discover  whether  a  particular  job  has 
prospects  of  successive  promotions,  into  what 
lines  these  promotions  lead,  and  how  soon,  under 
ordinary  conditions,  such  advancements  could  be 
expected  to  occur.  We  must  recognize  and  re- 
cord the  fact  that  there  are  some  jobs  that  hold 
very  limited  promise  of  promotion,  that  are,  in 
fact,  blind-alley  jobs.  The  fewer  of  these  your 
organization  need  contain,  the  greater  your  pros- 
pects of  retaining  a  high-class  personnel.  But  it 
must,  nevertheless,  be  admitted  that  under  modern 
industrial  conditions  there  are  such  jobs,  and  the 
employer's  obligation  is  to  recognize  that  fact 
and  to  know  where  they  occur. 

When  this  work  has  been  accomplished  and 
is  submitted  to  a  fair-minded,  well-intentioned 
employer,  we  are  certain  that  he  will  be  surprised 
(and  we  hope  shocked)  to  discover  the  lack  of 
opportunity,  the  unfair  wage  conditions,  and  the 
monotonous  futility  of  some  of  the  work  which 
he  is  offering  to  applicants  as  "a  good  job.'* 


CHAPTER  XII 

ADJUSTMENT  A  CONTINUOUS 
PROCESS 

Classifying  Men  in  the  War 

Industry  is  indebted,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
for  the  present  conception  of  proper  selection  and 
placement  of  men  to  the  experience  of  the  war. 
In  1914  Great  Britain  sacrificed  scores  of  thous- 
ands of  skilled  men  in  the  trenches  because  she 
had  neither  time  nor  means  for  selecting  and 
making  proper  assignments.  In  a  war  of  special- 
ization, such  as  this  turned  out  to  be,  these  men 
would  have  been  of  infinitely  greater  value  if 
assigned  to  service  where  their  special  abilities 
could  have  been  utilized. 

When  America  entered  the  war,  in  191 7,  she 
was  able  to  profit  by  England's  experience,  and 
through  the  Committee  on  Classification  of  Per- 
sonnel, she  established  ^'living  records"  for  all 
soldiers  (except  the  first  two  overseas  divisions) 
in  the  form  of  so-called  qualification  cards.  On 
these  were  recorded  all  those  factors  of  a  man's 
past  experience  and  future  possibilities  which  it 
was  of  value  for  the  army  to  know.  These  rec- 
ords detailed  each  man's  age  and  physical  condi- 
140 


ADJUSTMENT  CONTINUOUS  141 

tion,  his  education,  both  general  and  special,  his 
industrial  experience  and  his  trade  skill,  his  men- 
tal alertness  and  consequent  ease  of  learning,  as 
well  as  his  special  aptitudes  and  interests. 

With  these  data  and  with  tables  compiled  of 
the  occupational  needs  of  its  various  branches, 
the  army  officials  were  enabled  to  assign  skilled 
men  to  fill  skilled  gaps.  And  where  the  number 
ran  short,  they  could  assign  for  training  in  dif- 
ferent fields  those  men  whose  ability  and  interests 
made  it  possible  to  attain  proficiency  with  a  mini- 
mum of  time  and  effort.  This  resulted  in  con- 
servation of  skill,  reduction  of  the  period  of  train- 
ing, and  that  increase  of  general  morale  which 
attends  a  more  adequate  functioning. 

The  Labor  Inventory 

This,  then,  is  the  lesson  for  the  leaders  of 
modern  industry,  viz.,  to  make  a  labor  inventory 
of  their  respective  organizations.  By  so  doing 
they  have  a  chance  to  discover  concealed  talents 
and  secret  abilities  that  have  been  hiding  under 
bushels  in  unsuspected  regions  of  their  plants — 
talents  and  abilities  that  may  be  badly  needed  and 
of  great  value  in  other  parts  of  the  organization — 
and  by  proper  assignment  to  make  use  of  these; 
in  other  words,  to  select  men  for  jobs  that  are 
suited  to  their  capacities  and  in  harmony  with 


142  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

their  desires,  and  thus  to  secure  a  more  contented 
and  effective  working  force. 

But  this  is  not  all.  One  of  the  great  dangers 
in  personnel  work  is  that  the  job  should  be  con- 
sidered finished  when  this  state  has  been  attained. 
What  has  just  been  described  is  placement,  pure 
and  simple.  Such  placement  was  the  finished 
product  for  a  war-time  army  because  there  the 
entire  emphasis  lay,  and  properly  so,  in  perfect- 
ing the  organization. 

The  units  that  made  up  the  army  organization 
were  but  parts  of  the  whole.  The  entire  obliga- 
tion was  to  evolve  the  most  effective  organization 
possible,  in  order  to  meet  the  immediate  emer- 
gency— and  the  future  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual elements  thereof  was  rightly  not  a  matter 
of  moment.  Industry,  however,  is  no  immedi- 
ate emergency  to  be  encountered,  dealt  with,  and 
dismissed.  Industry  is  an  age-long  proposition. 
The  individuals  that  make  it  up  are  not  recruited 
for  a  specified  term  to  accomplish  a  specific  task. 
They  are  recruited  for  the  entire  span  of  their 
working  years  and  for  the  general  task  of  earn- 
ing a  livelihood. 

The  Round  Peg  in  the  Round  Hole 

The  slogan  of  the  Committee  on  Classification 
of  Personnel  was,  'The  Right  Man  in  the  Right 


ADJUSTMENT  CONTINUOUS  143 

Place,"  and  its  problem  was  to  secure  the  proper 
adjustment  of  round  and  square  pegs  in  round 
and  square  holes.  For  industry,  however,  this 
concept  is  a  very  sterile  and  mechanical  affair. 
The  army's  needs  were  specific  and  definite. 
Their  round  holes  were  exactly  spherical,  the 
angles  of  their  squares  all  of  90  degrees,  and 
from  the  hundreds  of  thousands  that  the  drafts 
were  continually  bringing  in  it  was  possible  to 
select  exact  fits. 

Rounding  the  Hole  or  Squaring  the  Peg 

It  seems  a  bit  of  a  pity  to  discard  so  euphoni- 
ous a  slogan,  but  modern  industry  must  do  so  be- 
cause its  obligation  is  not  simple,  like  the  army's, 
but  twofold.  It  must,  like  the  army,  look  to  the 
perfecting  of  the  organization.  But  it  must  also 
take  account  of  the  individuals  that  compose  it  as 
something  other  than  so  many  fixed,  static  units 
which,  once  put  in  proper  place,  will  continue 
to  function  unchanged  until  ready  for  the  scrap 
heap.  Human  beings  are  not  static.  They  are 
like  all  protoplasm,  dynamic,  ever  changing, 
growing,  or  shrinking,  putting  out  new  tentacles 
here  and  discarding  old  structures  there. 

A  man  who  this  year  fitted  with  nicety  into 
a  particular  job  may,  by  next  year,  be  suited  to 
another.     This  may  be  a  matter  of  steady  devel- 


144  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

opment  such  as  would  call  for  straight-line  pro- 
motion, or  it  may  be  a  change  to  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent line  for  which  he  has  been  fitting  himself 
in  his  off  hours.  He  may  have  lost  interest  in  his 
old  job,  either  from  lack  of  incentive  or  for  some 
wholly  extraneous  reason.  He  may  have  acquired 
a  distaste  for  some  of  its  attendant  conditions. 
Your  man,  in  short,  is  no  longer  exactly  square. 
He  has  worn  down  one  of  his  corners,  or  his 
sides  have  bulged  a  little,  and  he  is  no  longer  a 
perfect  fit. 

What,  then,  is  there  to  do  ?  Fire  him  and  seek 
another  perfect  square?  Here  also  industry  en- 
counters an  obstacle  not  present  in  the  army  situa- 
tion. Men  poured  into  the  army  from  the  draft 
boards  in  a  seemingly  inexhaustible  stream.  But 
the  source  of  labor  supply  is  limited,  even  in  times 
of  industrial  depression,  and  the  employer  must 
put  up  with  many  elongated  squares  and  elliptical 
circles.     How,  then,  to  secure  the  perfect  fit? 

Let  us  take  a  hint  from  the  clothing  industry. 
No  reputable  house  nowadays  but  provides  for 
alterations.  Few  of  us  are  perfect  36's  and  most 
of  us  carry  our  right  shoulders  a  little  high.  We 
would  be  less  a  thing  of  beauty  in  our  spring  suits 
if  it  were  not  for  this  wise  provision.  Aside 
from  a  certain  pleasing  symmetry,  there  is 
nothing  sacred  about  an  exact  geometrical  con- 


ADJUSTMENT  CONTINUOUS  145 

tour.  Why,  therefore,  isn't  it  sometimes  possible 
to  shave  a  corner  off  a  job — say  a  personally  ob- 
noxious detail — or  to  bulge  a  side  here  with  an 
added  responsibility? 

If,  however,  the  demands  of  production  re- 
quire that  a  job  stay  fixed  and  immutable,  it  is 
sometimes  possible  to  make  alterations  on  the 
worker.  Thinking  employers  are  realizing  this 
and  are  already  starting  factory  schools  and  mak- 
ing contracts  with  outside  institutions  whereby 
the  worker  may  be  enabled  to  bring  his  acute 
angles  up  to  90  degrees,  or  perhaps,  by  the  aid 
of  wise  counsel  wisely  administered,  to  trim  an 
unlovely  bulge  from  an  otherwise  perfect  shape. 

Holding  the  Worker  Down 

In  fact,  we  would  go  farther  and  affirm  that 
the  socially  minded  employer  is  even  obligated  to 
encourage  the  worker  to  outgrow  his  job.  Here, 
now,  is  where  we  strike  fire  with  the  old-time  em- 
ployer. "Why,"  he  shouts,  in  frenzied  exaspera- 
tion, "why  should  I  encourage  a  good  lathe  hand 
to  become  an  inefficient  draftsman?"  "Why," 
we  counter,  "do  you  take  your  son  out  of  the 
knickerbockers  that  are  still  unimpaired  and  put 
him  into  long  pants  ?  Why  do  you  stop  ordering 
roast  beef  which  you  know  is  edible  and  take  a 
chance  on  chicken  a  la  king?" 

10 


146  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Perhaps  you  don't  do  these  things.  It  may- 
be that  from  mistaken  motives  of  economy  you 
force  your  son  to  wear  the  despised  knicker- 
bockers until  they  merit  the  rag  bag.  Does  he 
love  you  for  it  ?  Does  he  treat  the  article  in  ques- 
tion with  that  respect  that  its  three-quarters- 
wool  quality  deserves?  Or  does  he  slide  down 
every  cellar  door  in  the  neighborhood  in  an  under- 
standable effort  to  hasten  the  day  of  their  discard? 

Maybe,  again,  you  are  one  of  those  individuals 
whose  gastronomic  imaginings  are  so  limited  in 
scope  that  your  inner  man  craves  no  deviation 
from  an  endless  affinity  with  the  bovine,  and 
^'Gargon,  roshif,"  is  your  regular  six  o'clock  slo- 
gan. Lucky  you,  you  are  indeed  the  most  fortu- 
nate of  mortals.  You  are  the  perfect  square 
whose  sides  will  never  bulge;  you  are  the  man 
who  has  found  his  sphere,  has  realized  his  destiny. 
Go  on  and  eat  your  daily  beef.  You  profit  the 
restaurateur  and  the  packer  and  the  stock  raiser 
and  the  farmer.    You  are  a  boon  to  humanity. 

There  are  many  like  you  in  every  department 
of  your  organization,  men  who  have  reached  the 
limits  of  their  industrial  capacity,  who  have 
attained  the  height  of  their  desires ;  men  who  are 
contented  and  happy  in  working  at  routine,  repeti- 
tive, monotonous  tasks,  supervised  in  every  detail 
of  their  operation,  satisfied  with  that  pittance  of 


ADJUSTMENT  CONTINUOUS  147 

"a  steady  job  and  a  good  boss."  They  were  the 
salvation  of  the  old-time  employer  who  bought  his 
labor  in  bulk  as  he  bought  his  pig  iron.  But  don't 
make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  the  stomachs 
of  all  men  can  rest  content  with  a  uniform  diet, 
and  don't  overlook  the  fact  that  workers  are  no 
longer  labor,  a  unit,  but  laborers,  a  group  of 
individuals. 

By  all  means  go  on  eating  beef  if  it  agrees 
with  you  and  if  your  appetite  craves  no  change, 
and  by  all  means  make  no  effort  to  convert  a  sub- 
normal machine  operative  into  a  cost  accountant. 
If  the  limitations  of  his  capacity  match  the  limi- 
tations of  his  job,  if  the  latter  meets  the  satisfac- 
tion of  his  hankerings  and  all  he  asks  is  some 
guarantee  of  its  permanence  and  a  kindly  attitude 
on  the  part  of  his  superior,  by  all  means  leave  him 
alone.  He,  like  your  beef-eater,  is  that  favored 
of  the  gods,  the  man  who  has  attained  his  ideal. 
But,  and  this  is  the  point  we  are  trying  to  make 
here,  recognize  that  he  wants  no  better,  not 
because  he  knows  no  better,  but  because  he  can 
know  no  better. 

A  trip  through  an  asylum  for  the  feeble-mind- 
ed leaves  the  thinking  man  appalled,  perhaps,  by 
the  degradation  of  the  human  intellect,  but  he  does 
not  come  away  with  any  feeling  of  pity  for  the 
inmates   as   individuals.      Their  wants  are   few 


148  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

because  their  capacities  are  limited;  and  they, 
again,  are  the  fortunate  mortals  who  can  sustain 
happiness  on  a  minimum.  Anyone  who  has 
witnessed  the  almost  unholy  joy  on  the  face  of 
an  imbecile  as  he  twists  a  bit  of  string  or  strikes 
one  little  piece  of  metal  on  another,  cannot  but 
feel  that  the  epithet  "cheerful  idiot"  is  well 
chosen. 

If,  then,  you  could  be  assured  that  all  workers 
on  stupid  jobs  were  themselves  proportionately 
stupid,  you  would  be  entirely  justified  in  fitting 
them  into  the  proper  niches  in  your  organization 
and  in  turning  your  attention  to  other  matters, 
secure  in  the  conviction  that  the  little  jig-saw 
pieces  of  your  puzzle  had  made  satisfactory 
adjustment  with  their  proper  openings,  and  that 
the  picture  was  now,  once  and  forever,  finished 
and  complete. 

Helping  the  Worker 

Assume,  then,  that  you  have  placed  the  worker 
in  the  job  for  which  he  was  best  suited  at  the 
time  you  placed  him  there.  You  have  examined 
his  physical  capacity,  you  have  learned  his  educa- 
tional status,  you  have  tested  his  trade  skill  or  lack 
of  it,  you  have  measured  his  mental  alertness  and 
his  consequent  possibility  of  future  development, 
you    have    estimated    certain    of    his    character 


ADJUSTMENT  CONTINUOUS  149 

qualities,  and  you  have  ascertained  something  of 
his  desires,  aspirations,  and  motives  to  action. 
With  these  data  in  hand  let  us  set  about  seeing 
what  can  be  done  to  develop  this  man  industrially. 

Maybe  his  physical  handicap,  if  he  has  one,  is 
such  that  it  cannot  be  remedied.  Again,  possibly 
by  medicinal  or  surgical  treatment  you  can  so 
improve  his  condition  that  he  will  be  able  to  take 
on  the  job  which  before  was  impossible  for  him. 
Perhaps  his  mental  capacity  is  of  such  low  order 
that  he  has  already  attained  the  maximum  develop- 
ment possible,  and  his  poor  educational  status  and 
his  lack  of  trade  skill  are  thus  understandable. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  reason  for  leaving  school 
at  the  third  grade  and  his  inability  to  handle  a 
high-grade  production  job  may  instead  be 
accounted  for  by  lack  of  opportunity. 

For  this  man  some  means  of  acquiring  further 
education  or  training  might  result  in  bringing 
him  up  to  the  required  standard  of  a  better  job. 
In  this  connection,  also,  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  mental  capacity  is  not  monolinear  but  multi- 
linear, and  that  the  same  course  of  study  or  the 
same  method  of  training  does  not  meet  the  re- 
quirements of  all  men.  Some  of  our  great  inven- 
tors would  probably  be  unsuccessful  as  stenog- 
raphers, and  some  of  our  corporation  lawyers 
utter  failures  as  tool-makers. 


150  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Again,  you  may  have  found  that  your  man 
has  not  the  character  quahfications  necessary  for 
leadership,  or  for  doing  exact  and  accurate  work, 
or  for  meeting  the  pubHc  with  diplomacy  and  tact. 
But  here,  again,  you  may  do  something  to  help 
him.  It  has  sometimes  happened  that  the  use  of 
a  rating  scale  whereby  the  man  is  judged  by  a 
number  of  his  superiors — not  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment  and  under  the  influence  of  a  temporary 
emotion,  but  after  calm,  cold  deliberation  and 
recording  the  results  in  black  and  white — has 
accomplished  much.  If,  for  example,  a  fore- 
man is  told  that  not  one  but  four  of  his  super- 
visors regard  him  as  possessing  less  initiative 
than  any  of  his  fellow-foremen,  it  may  serve 
as  a  stimulus  to  make  him  shake  off  habits  of 
inertia  into  which  he  had  fallen  because  he  was 
doing  well  enough  to  get  by  without  complaint. 

And,  last  of  all,  when  by  patient  study  of  that 
complex  matrix  which  constitutes  what,  for  want 
of  a  better  term,  we  call  the  ''personality"  of  a 
man,  we  may  be  vouchsafed  some  light  on  his  dear 
ambitions  and  his  inchoate,  inarticulate  desires, 
we  may  glean  some  notion  of  the  motives  that 
are  spurring  him  to  careful  work  or  are  urging 
him  to  loaf  on  the  job;  that  are  inciting  him  to 
insubordination  or  are  driving  him  to  whispered 
criticism;  that  are  slowly  impelling  him  to  hope- 


ADJUSTMENT  CONTINUOUS  151 

less  apathy  or  forcing  him  to  throw  down  his 
tools  in  disgust. 

Changing  the  Old  Order 

Frankly  it  may  be  admitted  here  that  even  if 
industry  could  rightly  interpret  all  these  problems, 
it  cannot  hope  entirely  to  solve  them.  It  has  been 
said  that  a  certain  amount  of  unrest  is  a  good 
thing;  that  it  is  a  proof  of  life  and  that  without 
life  there  is  no  progress.  When  the  arch-torturer 
prods  a  nerve  that  makes  you  leap  shrieking  from 
his  chair,  he  will  smilingly  assure  you  that  the 
tooth  is  not  dead  and  that  you  need  have  no  fear 
of  an  abscess  at  the  root.  Cold  comfort,  this,  for 
your  throbbing  molar.  And  cold  comfort  for 
the  employer  to  be  told  that  labor's  old  attitude 
of  patient  submission  was  a  diseased  condition, 
and  that  homeopathic  doses  of  T.  N.  T.  are  neces- 
sary to  restore  it  to  health. 

But  such  a  statement  would  not  be  without 
its  modicum  of  truth.  For  still  waters  run  deep 
and  history  has  proved  that  the  most  repressed 
peoples  stage  the  bloodiest  revolutions.  And  the 
abscess  at  the  root  leads  to  more  far-reaching 
complications  and  more  deadly  torments  than  the 
most  diabolical  of  dentists  can  accomplish  with 
his  probe  and  his  buzz-saw.  Moreover,  to  continue 
with  the  gruesome  analogy,  just  as  the  dentist, 


152  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

once  he  has  ascertained  the  facts,  can  do  much 
to  alleviate  your  distress  and  prevent  future 
trouble,  so  the  thinking  employer  can,  once  he  has 
conscientiously  studied  the  problem,  do  much  to 
relieve  and  better  bad  conditions,  and  by  the 
method  of  prophylaxis,  help  to  prevent  their 
recurrence. 

So,  not  satisfied  with  the  job  that  has  been 
done  of  studying,  examining,  and  testing  out  the 
workers,  and  the  task  that  has  been  accomplished 
of  inventorying  the  jobs  and  possible  opportuni- 
ties of  an  organization,  and  of  bringing  these 
two  factors  into  harmonious  adjustment,  we  are 
now  deliberately  suggesting  that  you  take  steps 
to  disturb  this  perfect  harmony. 

We  are  asking  you  to  remember  that  as  a  boy 
grows  you  must  provide  new  garments  for  him, 
and  that  as  a  man  develops  physically,  mentally, 
or  in  character  qualities,  so  you  must  provide  him 
with  new  industrial  opportunities.  Throughout 
the  entire  history  of  industry,  employers  have 
been  willing  enough  to  recognize  the  other  side 
of  the  picture.  They  will  readily  admit  that  the 
job  has  outgrown  the  man  or  that  the  man  has 
shrunk  and  shriveled  until  he  can  no  longer  fill 
the  job,  and  their  solution  of  the  problem  has 
been  immediate  and  unvarying. 

Finally,  even  as  you  seek  to  provide  your  boy 


ADJUSTMENT  CONTINUOUS  153 

with  the  vitamines  that  stimulate  growth,  so  you 
must  encourage  the  worker  to  develop  his  capac- 
ities and  ambitions  and  bring  to  bear  every 
incentive  for  such  development  that  the  limits  of 
your  organization  and  your  own  ingenuity  will 
permit. 

Every  Man  an  Industrial  Problem 

When  Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  the  words  **A11 
men  are  created  equal"  he  penned  the  world's 
greatest  document  of  democracy,  and  one  of  the 
most  fallacious  statements  on  record.  In  just  two 
ways  men  are  equal :  in  the  sight  of  God  and  in 
the  eyes  of  the  law — ^and  one  of  these  is  at  times 
markedly  myopic. 

No  two  men  are  alike.  Men  differ  from  one 
another  in  every  conceivable  particular.  They 
differ  in  appearance  and  physical  strength,  in 
agility  of  movement,  in  speed  of  reflex,  and  in 
keenness  of  sense-organs.  They  differ  in  mental 
ability,  and  in  ease  and  rapidity  of  learning.  They 
differ  in  their  esthetic  appreciation,  and  in  the 
things  which  appeal  to  their  sentiments  and  emo- 
tions. By  the  time  they  have  attained  maturity, 
they  differ  in  education  and  experience,  in  trade 
knowledge,  and  in  skill  of  manipulation.  They 
differ  in  the  relative  strength  of  different  instincts, 
in    their    desires    and    aspirations,    and    in    the 


154  SCIENCE  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

response  they  make  to  varying  incentives.  They 
run  the  whole  gamut  of  possible  variations. 
When  management  comes  to  realize  that  labor  is 
not  a  compact  mass  from  which  it  indiscrimi- 
nately chips  off  blocks  to  fill  its  gaps,  but  that  it 
is  rather  an  aggregate  of  disparate,  distinct,  and 
ever-changing  individuals,  it  may  come  to  devote 
the  time  and  effort  necessary  for  an  adequate 
adjustment,  and  for  its  own  ultimate  salvation! 


RETURN       CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

TOh^       202  Main  Library                        642-3403 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS  i 

1 -month  loons  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405  ' 

6-month  loons  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books  to  Circulotion  De 
Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  mode  4  days  prior  to  due  dote 


DUE 

AS 

STAMPED  BELOW 

Spp  0  r  *A«3t 

Mm    --    ■'e 

-■  r.    •■>,            HiOi 

rtEC.  CIK.JOL  2( 

77 

GEC  1  3  1977 

ftHC'O  W  29  ■on 

RECCItlitW  16  77 

vU 

- 

APR  2  01984    -' 

ree'dcirc.  MftY    9  B84 

^■^^   ^ 

^198? 

AUTO  DfScOEC     5  •?: 

^ 

FORM  NO.  DD  6,  40m,  6V6 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELE 
BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


<l 


LD  21-100m-8,'34 


GENERAL  LIBRARY  -  U.C.  BERKELEY 


BDQOflTMMa? 


49257 


i^^HP 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


